Ultimate Tycoon: Building the Richest Empire with System and Heroines

Ethan stood on the cracked road, his chest rising and falling as he looked around at the chaos he had just caused.

The once-bustling street was now a scene from a warzone—cracks snaked along the asphalt, trees were split in half, windows shattered. And all around him, the so-called superhumans he had fought were sprawled out on the ground like broken action figures.

One side of his body shimmered with a strange golden glow. The other pulsed with a deep, shadowy black. The contrast flickered across his arms, almost like fire and void were having a staring contest through his skin.

"What... the fuck is this?" Ethan muttered, raising both hands and watching the energy flicker and pulse. "One side's light… the other dark… What even am I right now?"

He stared down at the fallen enemies, still confused. "I've never read anything like this in the novel. What the hell is happening here?"

This world… it was supposed to be a simple slice-of-life. Some system stuff. A few face-slappings, money, heroine interactions, daily missions. But this?

"This is not in the script, man. What is all this superhuman crap?"

He rubbed his temple. "What is that glowing yellow crap they had? Why does mine look… different? Am I supposed to be some secret god of this world now or something?"

He recalled the goddess,the so-called divine figure who had transported him into this world.

"Oi, goddess," he muttered upward, as if she could hear." I signed up to become a tycoon and system flexing. What kind of cultivation xianxia shenanigans did you toss me into?

But before he could think more, he heard the crunch of movement.

The superhumans were getting back up, their eyes wild, their expressions twisted in pain and rage.

"Fuck… this guy can also use Chi?!"

"Shit, we underestimated him…"

"Is he some kind of hidden master?"

The leader, who had a jagged scar running across his jawline, spat blood. "Shut up! How dare he humiliate us! Let's kill him!"

"Wow, rude," Ethan muttered, getting into a stance he barely even remembered learning.

The group of enemies charged toward him again. But this time… something changed.

Their bodies began to morph,muscles bulging, skin hardening. Yellow light pulsed from their veins as their flesh turned rocky and spiked like some stone-armor mutation. Their transformation was grotesque.

The leader's arms twisted unnaturally and extended, forming long jagged claws made of sharpened stone.

Ethan blinked. "The fuck am I looking at right now…?"

Their feet thundered across the road, breaking the concrete with every step. "Kill him!" the leader roared.

"Okay…" Ethan muttered, already side-rolling away as they threw large, glowing spikes toward him. "Let's… not get skewered today."

The spikes exploded behind him, ripping into the ground, shattering a parked car's side. Ethan ducked behind the wreckage, heart pounding.

"Chi, huh? Gotta figure out what that is while not dying."

The leader jumped onto a nearby car, the roof caving in under his weight. He lunged with his st"Damn it!" Ethan shouted, flipping sideways off the curb and diving into a pile of broken crates.

Using the chaos around him, he kept dodging,ducking behind signs, leaping over debris, rolling through busted alley paths. The enemy's attacks slammed into buildings and cracked pavement, but never quite caught him.

In the middle of his acrobatics, Ethan yelled out sarcastically, "Hey! What's that chi you all keep talking about, huh? Come on, tell me! Educate me while you're trying to stab me!"

They paused mid-fight, surprised.

"You serious? You don't know what chi is?!"

Another growled, "Do you think we're some clowns?! If you don't even know what chi is, how the hell are you doing all this?!"

Ethan raised a brow and smirked. "Pardon me… but you guys are worse than clowns. At least clowns make people laugh.

Their spikes fired off in every direction like missiles.

As he dodged again, his eyes caught the movement of the clawed leader, Ethan ducked, weaved, spun around, and countered with a punch right in the gut of one of the stone mutants. His fist bounced off the rocky skin with a thud.

"Damn, your skin's harder than my future," Ethan said, shaking his hand. "Why are you all built like Minecraft bosses?"

The enemy grunted, confused by the pain he still felt. "How… are you moving so fast?!"

Another shouted, "What the hell is he?! He doesn't even know Chi and still beat us earlier!"

As the battle dragged on, Ethan began to notice something.

His movements were getting smoother. Faster. More precise.

"Wait a second…." Enjoy the story by reading on M|V|LE%MPYR.

Each dodge felt instinctive. Each punch is a little harder. His speed is absurd now. His awareness heightened. His system didn't even give him a pop-up, yet he was evolving in real-time.

"This must be my plot armor kicking in," he said with a smirk, dodging two simultaneous attacks with a backflip.

They all growled in unison, clearly pissed off.

Their leader snarled, "Kill him!"

Ethan cracked his knuckles, rolling his shoulders. "Looks like I have to beat them again. And I still don't know how I did it last time... but I gotta do it again."

He gathered strength, both his hands glowing,golden on one, darkness on the other. The two powers swirled and pulsed.

"Let's see what this does."

One of the spiked fighters lunged with a furious roar, launching a barrage of spiky blasts.

Ethan ducked low, dashed forward, and slammed a glowing fist into the guy's gut.

BOOM!

The man went flying like a missile, crashing into a building wall and falling limp.

Ethan blinked. "Whoa… that punch… was insane."

Another guy charged at him, swinging wild. Ethan ducked, rolled behind him, and delivered a clean elbow to the back of his neck. The man's eyes rolled back as he fell face-first into the concrete.

He moved faster than before, almost like his body was learning mid-fight.

The clawed leader dashed at him, his claws cutting through the air. "DIE!"

Ethan sidestepped, grabbing the leader's wrist mid-swing, and smashed his elbow into the man's jaw. Then a spinning kick sent him crashing into a streetlight.

The other enemies surrounded him again,but Ethan didn't falter. This time, he was calm.

He ducked under one, punched another across the face, slammed a third into the ground.

Every move was sharper, more instinctive.

"Why… Why does this feel so natural?" he thought. "It's like I've done this before. But I haven't. Not like this."

The last guy ran toward him, screaming.

Ethan didn't wait.

He stomped forward, his black-glowing hand raised,and with one clean, brutal smack, he knocked the guy out cold.

The silence after the chaos was heavy.

Ethan stood there, panting, surrounded by unconscious superhumans.

"…Okay," he muttered.

He looked at his hands again,one still shimmering gold, the other whispering with darkness.

"I have no idea what just happened. But I think… I just became something very different."

Ethan walked toward the scattered superhumans lying on the ground. They groaned, humiliated and traumatized after getting beaten by a young boy who didn't even know what chi was.

As he approached the leader, Ethan noticed their monstrous forms had vanished. Now, they just looked like regular people. The leader weakly raised a hand.

"Please... don't do anything. I'm about to pass out..."

"Hey, hey, you fucking prick, what is this logic?" Ethan slapped his face once. Then again. Then a few more times just for fun.

The goons nearby saw what happened. Without needing a word, they all dropped to their knees beside their boss, terrified.

"Good," Ethan said, cracking his knuckles. "Now. Let's talk."

He crouched down beside the leader and asked calmly, "Tell me, what is this chi you were talking about?"

The leader looked at him in disbelief. "Are you seriously joking right now? How did you even do all this when you don't even know what chi is? A normal can't even hold a candle to us, and you beat us up like we're some trash... Now you're saying you don't even know what chi is?"

"Yeah, yeah. Blah, blah. I don't know what the fuck chi is," Ethan said bluntly.

"Seriously?!"

They all shouted in unison.

Ethan rolled his eyes, clearly irritated. He picked up a broken spike lying on the road — one of the many pieces that had flown off their mutated bodies during the fight.

"Hey buddy, I'm asking a question. If you don't answer me, I'll shove this in your asshole."

The leader's eyes widened. "Please don't do this! I cannot make that hard,it will really hurt!"

"Fucking crying bitch. Weren't you the one making all these people's lives hell and even trying to kill them?" Ethan growled.

"We're sorry!" they all said quickly.

"I'll think about what to do with you," Ethan muttered. "But for now, just fucking answer my question."

"Y-yes, yes!" the leader said, trembling. "Chi is what gives us our power. The more connected one is to their chi, the stronger their abilities become. There's special training... to awaken it. No one can just use it randomly. That's all we know!"

Ethan murmured, "So it's like mana in those awakening novels..."

"Excuse me, what is mana?" the leader asked.

"Fucking nothing," Ethan grunted.

At that moment, Nate and Sasha ran up, eyes wide.

"Ethan," Nate said, "who are you really? What is that power you have?"

Sasha added, "And who are these people?!"

Ethan stood, brushing dust from his sleeve. "Well... I don't even know myself. That's why I'm asking these pricks."

He turned back to the gang. "Hey, tell me,how should I know more about this chi?"

But before the leader could speak, everything around Ethan suddenly stopped.

The wind froze. Dust particles hung in mid-air. The birds paused in flight.

Only Ethan could move.

He sighed. "Oh come on... not this again."