Lord of the Myriad Worlds

Chapter 261: The Schemer

Well, well.

This seemingly brash, stingy, eccentric Liang Yuzhi — she was a schemer of the highest order.

If not for Adai's sharp eyes catching her little trick, Li Wei might never have noticed from start to finish.

Liang Yuzhi had planned to brew the Spirit Elixir during the mission and consume it during the mission — that wouldn't trigger the anti-smuggling clause at all. And as long as the Spider Demoness's leg wasn't identified, the Pioneering Card's built-in system wouldn't register it either. If it had never existed in the records, there was nothing to trace.

The real kicker was that Liang Yuzhi had managed to scheme against both Li Wei and Li Yue from start to finish while playing the fool. If she'd successfully rolled a Rare Scholar Card on top of all that, she'd have laughed all the way to the end.

"I understand. What if my condition is — you brew a Spirit Elixir for me as well?" Li Wei asked calmly.

"Impossible. Can't be done. There's not enough spellcaster-grade raw material. I only have enough for one dose. Name a different condition. I can give you 5,000 gold coins. I can help you backstab Li Yue. Anything but that."

"Wait — hold on. Why would spellcaster materials be so scarce? You've been in the All-Heavens Lord Alliance for at least twenty years. You can't possibly have this little in stock. I don't believe it."

Li Wei called out the inconsistency directly. It genuinely didn't add up. If she'd said spellcaster materials were hard to find in a normal world, fine — but this world? This was a world where the Magic Source had gone completely out of control, radiating corruption everywhere.

Liang Yuzhi let out a long sigh."I've actually been in the All-Heavens Lord Alliance for fifty-eight years. I'm ninety years old. Li Yue is eighty-two. Your boss Night Owl is eighty-one. We're all from the same cohort. Of the three of us, Night Owl has done the best — she currently holds a four-star territory and serves as a Viscount under Duke Veil. Li Yue and I are both Barons, each with a three-star territory, also earned through Pioneering Missions like this one. We were once five-star cross-border lords, high and mighty. Someone like you — I wouldn't have wasted a second glance."

"But do you know why Li Yue and I ended up in such a sorry state? Because we lost. We died. We died in a foreign world. To be revived, we spent everything — even mortgaged and sold our territories."

"You might think our miserable state when we joined this Pioneering Mission was an act. It wasn't. We were genuinely left with nothing. We were revived and practically shoved straight into this world. We were starting from scratch, with empty hands. All we had left were a few remaining resources. Do you understand what that feels like? Overnight, we were left with just one Resource Card. I lost most of my weapons and equipment."

"So in that situation — you taking that thing is almost the same as taking my life. I'm not threatening you. I don't want to have my memory wiped and return to a world that's become foreign to me. I'm asking you to show some mercy. Consider it a debt I owe you... I... what the — is that magical raw essence? Where did you get that? What the — what the — what the —"

Liang Yuzhi suddenly erupted with curses, because Li Wei had just produced the two bottles of magical raw essence.

"So now — can you brew a Spirit Elixir for me?" Li Wei asked. He didn't fully understand the process, but he wanted to try. On the off chance it worked.

"Yes! Absolutely no problem. What the — wait, give me the Spider Demoness's life core. Three days from now — wait, what the — you had it identified? This is already registered as family property."

"Yes. But I can spend 100 Prestige points to forcibly claim it as my own." Li Wei said this calmly. It was within the rules. He was acting within the rules. What was wrong with that?

Liang Yuzhi looked at him with a complicated expression. Finally, she nodded, took the items without another word, and left.

A moment later, she came back. Without a word, she initiated a trade.

["Family Member Liang Yuzhi has initiated a trade with you. You have received 2,500 Standard Gold Coins."]

["Trade message: I'll admit it — you're good. I respect that. This is the 5,000 gold I tricked out of Li Yue, split with you. Whatever else, consider it a small token of goodwill. Also: once the Spirit Elixir is ready, for the next three months — you're the boss."]

Reading that trade message, Li Wei felt genuinely pleased. How could he not? 2,500 gold coins, just like that. Truly the finest Second Aunt in history.

Of course, neither Liang Yuzhi nor Li Wei mentioned how to enforce this arrangement. They were both adults. They each knew how to protect their own interests.

He had spent 100 Prestige points to forcibly claim the Spider Demoness's life core — but he hadn't transferred it to Liang Yuzhi through a trade. So legally speaking, even if Liang Yuzhi used it to brew the Spirit Elixir, a portion of it would always belong to Li Wei.

Of course, if Li Wei chose not to pursue it, everything would remain peaceful.

Nothing to worry about.

That night, Li Wei slept soundly — more at ease than he'd ever been. Because from this moment on, the entire Scavenger Camp was entering a phase of efficient, rapid development.

From inside to outside, from top to bottom, every member had been organized and set in order. No one would be dragging their feet or causing trouble at this stage.

Even the Freemen knew: two months from now, the radiation storm was coming. For many of them, it would be their first time outside the underground base when it hit. The more they prepared now, the better their chances of surviving.

The next morning, Li Wei finished breakfast and stood on the building's rooftop terrace. In the sky, Adai's silhouette grew smaller in the distance. On the ground below, people were busy at work. For the first time, he felt a faint sense of what it meant to be a lord — looking out over a small corner of the world.

'Two months from now — that'll be the trial by fire for this territory. If we make it through, the rest should be manageable.'

He thought this with a lightness in his heart. Truly — there had never been a moment when he felt this confident about the future.

Not blind confidence. Real confidence. Everything was under control.

He had people. He had resources. His boss Night Owl, watching from above, could finally breathe a little easier.

That was a debt of gratitude, after all. Li Wei felt he should repay it.

Just this once, though.

Because with this territory, he'd be a three-star lord with real power — and a Baron.

Three days passed in a flash. That night, Liang Yuzhi slipped silently into Li Wei's room. Not a word spoken. No conspiracy card activated — she probably didn't have many left. She simply handed him a small vial that glowed with a faint golden light even in the dark.

Then she left.

No trade. Any trade would leave a record.

Besides — the Spider Demoness's life core and the two bottles of magical raw essence had all been Li Wei's to begin with. She'd merely helped brew it. Afterward, she kept one dose, gave Li Wei one dose. This was the kind of thing only the two of them needed to know. Even the sky and earth knowing would be too many witnesses.

So Li Wei, in perfect tacit understanding, said nothing — as if Liang Yuzhi had never come.

He reached inward. The Destiny Matrix formed by his four profession cards drifted out from between his brows. The Destiny light swept over the vial, and in an instant, the information was clear.

["Name: Spirit Elixir"]

["Quality: Three-Star, slightly flawed"]

["Effect: Upon first consumption, there is a very high probability of permanently increasing Spiritual Power by 3 to 5 points. Upon second consumption, permanently increases Spiritual Power by 2 to 3 points. Upon third consumption, permanently increases Spiritual Power by 1 point. Fourth consumption and beyond will only provide a Spiritual Power recovery effect, restoring 15 Spiritual Power per dose."]

["Warning: Consumption will inevitably produce certain side effects, such as hallucinations, headaches, drowsiness, and temporary memory loss."]

—

Genuinely good stuff.

Li Wei didn't hesitate. He uncorked the vial and drank it down in one go.

In that instant, it didn't feel like swallowing a liquid at all. It was more like swallowing a gust of wind, or swallowing a stretch of time — a description that sounded absurd, but was exactly as absurd as the experience itself.

Because the next second, he felt himself transform into an enormous frog. His head swelled to thirty times its normal size. His tongue stretched thirty meters long and could reach into his own ear to pull out his brain, dust it off, flick away a few encrusted bits, and watch it gleam brilliantly — his brain even started singing and dancing on its own, and then it sprouted several smaller brains, all of them noisy and chattering...

By the end, Li Wei had completely forgotten who he was. He had no idea what he was doing. All he knew was that when he came back to himself, it felt like only a second had passed.

He looked around. The good news: he hadn't gone on a rampage or made a scene. The bad news: a thunderous, storm-cloud-dark wave of agonizing pain.

The only thing Li Wei could do was clutch his head like a ball being kicked around... the hallucinations hadn't faded.

The reason he'd come back to himself at all was because the pain was too intense.

But the moment the pain eased even slightly, he'd plunge straight back into incomprehensible visions.

The good news: in this state, he was almost completely incapacitated — barely any strength left to cause trouble. The bad news: it was absolutely terrible.

Vomiting, diarrhea, complete loss of bodily control... was this the price of becoming a spellcaster?

Li Wei suffered through the entire night before finally adapting. Then came a deep, all-consuming sleep — he knew nothing after that.

He didn't even notice when Zhao Xuanxuan came in to clean up after him.

When he woke again, he'd even forgotten what time it was, forgotten where he was — nearly convinced he was in a hospital bed back home on Earth.

Because everything around him was clean and tidy. He was lying in bed with fresh sheets. The window beside him was open, bright sunlight streaming in, a corner of blue sky visible, a gentle breeze carrying the sweet scent of wheat nearly ready to harvest —

What?

The wheat was nearly ripe?

Li Wei jolted upright, rapidly piecing everything back together. How long had he been asleep?

He stood up — a little unsteady — and went to the window. Outside the camp building, a larger ring of city walls was rising from the ground. Thomas and Zhang Jinjun were working alongside Santiago, Xavier, Benjamin, and eight other Freemen.

In the southeast corner within the walls, a blast furnace over ten meters tall was under construction, next to an already-completed, higher-grade smithy.

He could faintly hear the rumble of the steam generator set and the roar of the concrete mixer. The main body of the Level 3 city wall was nearly finished. Progress this fast — had he been asleep for nearly a month?

He hadn't turned into a vegetable?

And no apparent memory loss either. He checked his Spiritual Power — it had risen to 15 points.

Maxed out.