CHAPTER 2: The Economic Deconstruction
The morning sun did not rise over the Sun-Severing Peak so much as it pierced through the thick, grey smog of the clan's industrial furnaces. To the common disciple, those furnaces were the pride of the Gu Clan—the source of their enchanted weapons and spiritual pills. To Gu Xian, watching the soot settle on his windowsill, they were a monument to thermal inefficiency.
"Nineteen percent," he whispered, his finger tracing a line through the fine black powder. "Nineteen percent of the spiritual coal is lost to incomplete combustion. A waste of energy. A waste of life."
He had spent the last forty-eight hours submerged in the mundane. While the rest of the clan expected the "Sleeping Fool" to be practicing sword stances or desperately trying to repair his fractured meridians, Gu Xian had been surrounded by stacks of paper. The tax records of the fourteen branch families were spread across his floor like the remains of a dissected animal.
Most cultivators viewed gold and spirit stones as a means to an end—fuel for their vanity or their power. Gu Xian, having lived a life on Earth as a man who understood the movement of capital, saw them for what they truly were: Information Flow.
In a world governed by the Great Algorithm, resources did not move randomly. They followed the path of least resistance. If a branch family was suddenly flourishing while the main sect's treasury was stagnant, it wasn't "luck" or "blessing." it was a leak in the system.
A soft knock disturbed the silence of his chambers.
"Enter," Gu Xian commanded, not looking up from a ledger detailing the grain exports of the Southern Valley.
A middle-aged man stepped in. This was Elder Gu Feng, the head of the clan's logistics. He was a man with a protruding belly and eyes that moved too quickly, always searching for a profit in the corners of a room. He had been one of the loudest voices calling for Gu Xian's removal.
"Young Patriarch," Gu Feng said, his voice dripping with a false, oily concern. "I heard you requested the ledgers. Surely, a man of your… delicate condition… should be resting. The financial burdens of the clan are far too complex for a mind that has been dormant for so long."
Gu Xian finally looked up. His white hair, a stark contrast to his youthful face, seemed to catch the light in an unsettling way. His eyes were flat, devoid of the spark of human warmth. To Gu Feng, it felt like being stared at by a predatory bird—or worse, a mathematical equation that had found an error.
"Complex?" Gu Xian asked. "Complexity is merely a mask for those who wish to hide their tracks. I find these records remarkably simple. They tell a story of systemic parasitism."
Gu Feng's smile faltered. "I'm afraid I don't follow."
"Sit, Elder," Gu Xian said, gesturing to a low stool. "Let us discuss the Second Law of Thermodynamics as it applies to the Gu Clan."
"The… what?"
"Entropy," Gu Xian stated, leaning back. "In any closed system, energy tends to move from a state of order to disorder. The Gu Clan is a system. The Spirit Stones are the energy. According to these ledgers, the Southern Valley branch has reported a thirty percent crop failure due to 'Spirit-Locusts' for three consecutive years. And yet, their purchase of high-grade cultivation mats from the capital has tripled in that same period."
Gu Feng felt a bead of sweat roll down his neck. "Agricultural cycles are unpredictable, Young Patriarch. The locusts—"
"—Do not exist," Gu Xian interrupted. "I checked the climate data. Spirit-Locusts require a humidity level of sixty percent to gestate. The Southern Valley has been in a minor drought for four years. The probability of an infestation is less than zero. What is actually happening is a Liquidity Diversion."
Gu Xian picked up a brush and began to draw a diagram on a fresh sheet of parchment. It wasn't a map; it was a flow chart of the clan's economy.
"You have been 'washing' the sect's resources through the grain market, Elder. You report a loss, take the 'emergency relief' stones from the main treasury, and funnel them into your private accounts to fund your grandson's cultivation. You are a friction point in the machine. And friction generates heat. Do you know what happens to a machine when it overheats?"
Gu Feng stood up, his face turning a mottled purple. "How dare you! You have been awake for two days and you think you can accuse a senior elder of embezzlement? You are a C-grade talent with a broken brain! My grandson is a B-grade genius—he is the future of this clan!"
Gu Xian didn't flinch. He didn't even raise his voice. Anger was a chemical reaction—a spike in cortisol and adrenaline that clouded judgment. He had purged such inefficiencies during his time in the Void.
"Your grandson's potential is a variable I have already accounted for," Gu Xian said. "He is currently seventeenth in the ranking. His growth curve is linear. Mine… is exponential."
"You have no power!" Gu Feng snarled, his hand moving toward his waist where a heavy jade pendant hung. It was a communication tool, a way to summon the Clan Guard. "I will have the Elders' Council convene. We will strip you of your title today!"
"You will not," Gu Xian said.
He reached into his sleeve and pulled out a small, thumb-sized vial filled with a grey, viscous liquid. "This is a concentrated solution of silver-mercury and powdered spirit-stone dust. I spent my morning synthesizing it."
Gu Feng sneered. "What is that? A poison? Do you think you can kill me here, in the heart of the sect, and get away with it?"
"I am not going to kill you, Elder. I am going to De-Synchronize you."
Gu Xian flicked the vial. It didn't strike Gu Feng; it shattered against the floor, releasing a fine, metallic mist.
Gu Feng instinctively pulled back his Qi to form a shield, but the mist didn't hit the shield. It was attracted to it.
The Scientific Principle: Gu Xian had exploited the Ionic Attraction of the mercury. Because Gu Feng's Qi was a high-energy plasma, it possessed a strong electromagnetic field. The metallic dust in the air was "doped" with a specific spiritual frequency that made it behave like iron filings toward a magnet.
As the dust bonded with Gu Feng's protective aura, the Elder's face went from rage to confusion. He tried to take a step forward, but his legs refused to move. He tried to shout, but only a wet, gargling sound came out.
"What… what have you…?"
"Your Qi-Shield is currently acting as a Faraday Cage," Gu Xian explained, standing up and walking toward the paralyzed man. "The metallic particles have created a conductive mesh around your aura. Usually, a shield protects you from external forces. But this mesh is reflecting your own neural impulses back into your body. Every time your brain tells your arm to move, the electrical signal is caught by the mesh and bounced back, causing a muscular spasm."
Gu Xian leaned in close. He could see the terror in Gu Feng's eyes.
"In the Earth Shard's world, this would be a sophisticated form of electronic warfare. Here, it is simply a matter of understanding that your 'Spirit' is just bio-electricity. You are a prisoner of your own power, Elder. The more Qi you circulate to try and break free, the more intense the feedback loop becomes."
Gu Xian reached out and calmly took the jade pendant from the Elder's belt.
"I have already sent a message to the other Branch Elders using your personal seal, which I found in your desk drawer this morning," Gu Xian lied smoothly. The lie was a tactical necessity—a Social Engineering attack. "I told them that you have confessed to the embezzlement and that you are naming them as co-conspirators to save your grandson."
Gu Feng's eyes bulged. He tried to speak, but the "Faraday Effect" caused his jaw to snap shut with a sickening crack.
"Now," Gu Xian continued, "by the time I release the feedback loop, the other Elders will have already begun destroying the evidence of their own crimes. In their panic, they will make mistakes. They will reveal the hidden vaults. They will reveal the true extent of the leak."
Gu Xian walked back to his desk and sat down. He picked up his brush and returned to his ledgers.
"You may leave now, Elder. The effect will wear off in ten minutes. I suggest you spend that time deciding which of your cousins you are going to betray first. If you are efficient, you might even survive the night."
Gu Feng, finally finding a shred of control as the mist began to settle, stumbled toward the door. He didn't look back. He fled the room with the desperation of a man who had seen the face of a god and found it made of cold, unfeeling stone.
The Taxonomy of Power
Gu Xian sat in the silence, his mind already moving to the next phase.
Uprooting the branch elders was not about "Justice." Gu Xian didn't care about the stolen spirit stones for the sake of the clan's honor. He cared about Resource Concentration.
In his Earth-Shard life, he had seen how corporations grew. They didn't just work hard; they eliminated competitors and centralized their assets. The Gu Clan was currently a fragmented mess of competing interests. If he was to reach the Immortal Realm, he needed the entire clan to function as a single, optimized engine.
"The human variable is the most difficult to calculate," he mused. "They are driven by biological imperatives: greed, fear, reproductive success. To control them, one must simply manipulate the environment so that their 'choice' aligns with my 'requirement'."
His internal monitor flickered.
[Biological Status Update] [Heart Rate: 55 bpm (Stable)] [Neural Pathing: Integration of Earth-Shard logic complete.] [Alert: Star-Shard (Murim) signal strength increasing. Est. arrival: 14 days.]
The Murim Shard. The part of him that knew how to kill.
The Earth Shard had given him the tools to dismantle an economy, but the Murim Shard would give him the tools to dismantle a man. He would need it. The "High Priest" of the clan was not a man of ledgers; he was a man of ancient, bloody tradition. He would not be moved by a tax audit.
Gu Xian stood up and walked to a hidden compartment in the wall. He pulled out a small, blackened piece of wood. It was a fragment of the World-Tree, a relic the clan used for divination.
To a normal cultivator, it was a holy object. To Gu Xian, it was a Data-Storage Device left behind by the Great Algorithm.
He placed his hand on the wood. He didn't pray. He didn't seek a vision. He simply sent a pulse of refined Qi into the wood, using it as an Oscilloscope.
The wood vibrated. In his mind, a series of waves appeared.
"The resonance is shifting," Gu Xian noted. "The 'Luck' of the sect is being pulled away from the main lineage and toward the branch families. The Heavens are trying to rebalance the narrative. They want Lin Feng to be the 'Victorious Underdog' who cleanses the corrupt clan."
He squeezed the wood until it splintered.
"A pity. I have already begun the Narrative Poisoning. By the time Lin Feng realizes he is the hero, I will have already changed the genre of this story to a tragedy."
The Midnight Audit
Later that night, the Sun-Severing Peak was a hive of frantic activity.
Shadows moved between the branch villas. Fires were lit in private courtyards as ledgers were burned. Men who had shared wine for decades were now looking at each other with murderous suspicion.
Gu Xian watched it all from the window of his pagoda. He had a cup of plain water in his hand. He had calculated that tea would provide an unnecessary caffeine spike that would interfere with his sleep cycle.
The "Void" within him felt satisfied. Not in an emotional sense, but in the way a mathematician feels satisfied when a complex equation begins to simplify.
The Gu Clan was being torn apart.
His father, the Patriarch Gu Tian, would be furious. The Elders would be in chaos. And in the center of the storm, Gu Xian would be the only one who knew where the pieces were falling.
"Young Patriarch?"
A small, trembling voice came from the shadows of the room. It was a servant girl, perhaps fourteen years old. Her name was Xiao, and she had been assigned to clean his rooms for years. She was the only one who hadn't mocked him during his "slumber."
"You… you haven't eaten, sir," she said, holding a tray with a bowl of simple rice and broth.
Gu Xian turned to look at her. He didn't see a girl. He saw a Social Asset. She was loyal, she was invisible, and she had access to the servant networks of the entire peak.
"Xiao," he said, his voice softening just enough to be perceived as 'kind'—a calculated modulation of his vocal cords. "Do you know what the most valuable thing in this world is?"
The girl blinked, startled. "Power, sir? Or… or spirit stones?"
"No," Gu Xian said. He walked over and took the tray. "It is Predictability. The ability to know what will happen before it does."
He took a sip of the broth. It was bland. He noted the salt content and the caloric value.
"I have a task for you, Xiao. It involves a small amount of gossip. You are good at listening, aren't you?"
The girl nodded slowly. "I hear many things, sir. The other servants think I am simple."
"Perfect. I want you to spread a rumor. Tell the cooks that I have found an 'Ancient Spirit-Vein' beneath the Southern Valley. Tell them I am planning to seize it for the main treasury."
The girl's eyes widened. "But… is there a vein there, sir?"
"It doesn't matter if it exists," Gu Xian said, his eyes reflecting the distant fires of the burning ledgers. "What matters is that the Branch Elders think I know it exists. In their greed, they will move to 'protect' it. And when they do, they will leave their real treasures unguarded."
He handed the tray back to her, though he had barely touched the food.
"Go now, Xiao. Become the whisper in the kitchen. In exchange, I will ensure that when the purge begins, your family is on the 'Exempt' list."
The girl bowed deeply and scurried away.
Gu Xian sat back down in the darkness. He felt the cold pressure of the Great Algorithm pressing against his mind. It was sensing the disruption. The "Hero's Journey" of Lin Feng was being diverted.
The Heavens would respond soon. They would send a "Miracle" to Lin Feng. A hidden master, a legendary weapon, a sudden breakthrough.
"Let them come," Gu Xian whispered.
He pulled a small piece of obsidian from his pocket—the ritual knife from the prologue. He began to sharpen it against the stone floor. The sound was a rhythmic, abrasive skritch-skritch-skritch.
"I have already calculated the trajectory of your miracles. And I have found that even a god can be killed if you strike at the Zero-Point of his existence."
As the first bells of dawn began to ring, the Young Patriarch of the Gu Clan closed his eyes. He didn't sleep. He entered a state of Cyclical Information Refresh, his mind re-simulating the events of the day a thousand times over, searching for the one variable he might have missed.
He found none.
Volume I was progressing ahead of schedule. The economic foundation of his enemies was crumbling. The hardware of his body was being upgraded with mercury and intent.
The "Sleeping Fool" was no more. The Architect of Insanity had begun to build his throne.