Star Gate

Li Hao gave full vent to his bottled-up fury when he saw that the leader of a law enforcement institution thought of it as helping or giving charity to a subordinate agency when trouble was at hand. That was wrong, gravely wrong!

“Hmph!” The young man snorted when he heard the sound of something breaking and left in a merry high. He didn’t care what the results of this meeting would be. Those who didn’t care wouldn’t pay heed to his words. If he said the same thing to Inspector General Liu or someone similar, they’d probably just laugh merrily and forget about it in the next breath.

That Yao Si flew into a rage meant that he still cared. Li Hao’s words from the heart that jabbed at the listener’s core would be ineffective on politicians. Only those who still gave consideration to these matters would question their conscience.

Do you still have that heart, Yao Si?

Li Hao put the meeting out of his mind as he walked off to the side. Perhaps the man no longer did. Who will eternally honor their original ambitions? Do I even know what my intentions were in the beginning? People change, we all do. Yao Si did, I do.

Perhaps I cannot bear the sight of this darkness and murkiness today. Maybe I can’t stand the sight of this man eat man era. But perhaps after a year or three, I might be part of them.

Such thoughts flashed through his mind. It was enough to take care of oneself in this age. That already made one a good person. It would take a saint to extend that mindset to the rest of the world.

……

Leaving all that behind, Li Hao returned next door to the campground of the Silver Moon Guards. He’d been gone for less than twenty minutes, but there were nearly one thousand Guards present. They made quick work of two thousand storage rings. Two to three each was the perfect division of work.

When Li Hao arrived, all of the Guards were immersed in the joy of counting money. A small mountain of mysterious power stones stood in the center of the yard. Another group of people walked up, hauling a large bag in their wake.

“Ten thousand pieces!” they reported with hard swallows.

Mu Lin took note of the number and called out, “We’re at one million and seven hundred sixty thousand. Any more?”

“There’s a bit more over here, give me a sec…” Another group of people walked over with a large bundle. “There’s 9271 pieces here…”

They were about to pour it onto the small mountain when Li Hao held up his hand. “Wait!”

The assembly looked at him, puzzled. Most were envious, jealous, worshipful, and lusted after his riches… It was a complicated mix of emotions that left them slightly numb. Just mysterious power stones alone had been so numerous that it tired the Guards from counting them all.

One million and seven hundred sixty thousand! This didn’t include some of the more unique ones. Those bigger or filled with more energy were tossed off to the side as another type of resource.

“That’s all the mysterious power stones?”

“Yes!” Mu Lin nodded. “One million and seven hundred sixty thousand standard size pieces. No, wait, there’s another 9271 pieces. They’re all here with not a single one missing. Don’t worry, Commander Li. I promise that no one would dare take one for themselves!”

Li Hao nodded, then frowned after some thought. “These guys are so damned poor!”

“……” Mu Lin blinked. What did the young man mean?

“A dozen Novas, three metamorphoses, the Four Seas Company, Skystar Colosseum, and thousands of nobles amount to one million and seven hundred sixty thousand pieces?”

What were they if not damned poor? This was impossible! Li Hao was confused why there were so few stones. These were two exceedingly rich factions that he’d raided. Even if most of their riches were usually turned in to the Ministry of Finance, they couldn’t have not left some for themselves. Setting the Colosseum aside, this truly was too little from the Four Seas Company.

It shouldn’t be that different compared to the Xus! And the nobles! There were so many nobles out for a lark at Four Seas Island. What kind of nobles were they to not have several hundred pieces of stone on them? A major noble such as Mu Xiaorong would have even more.

If each person averaged ten pieces, Li Hao’s hostages of several thousand would amount to several tens of thousands. One hundred pieces each would be hundreds of thousands…

His lack of a bountiful harvest was apparent when the numbers were averaged out. Of course, the fault wouldn’t lay with the Silver Moon Guards. Could the Ministry of Finance have taken it all ahead of time?

The mysterious power stones that he’d collected before were all in a storage ring that Yang Shan was taking back to Silver Moon. This pile here would be the entirety of his resources in the days to come. He also wouldn’t be able to claim it all as those such as Hou Xiaochen would have to be given part of the loot. It wasn’t good etiquette to pronounce all of it for himself. Hou Xiaochen had a thousand Silver Moon Guards to support, which put him under a lot of pressure as well.

Not only that, but Li Hao might have to turn in a bit more to the Night Watchers… even if it was just a token of his sentiments. Hence, he felt that the count was low.

“There’s more over here,” Mu Lin hastily said. “It’s the kind used by the armies in the ruins. One piece of those is the equivalent of ten of ours. There’s a decent amount at roughly twenty thousand pieces.”

“So that makes for approximately two million mysterious power stones?” Li Hao nodded.

“Yes!”

“If I trade them for Water of Life at the Nine Dragons Pavilion, that would only be twenty drops,” the young man chuckled.

Wow, it’s that expensive? Mu Lin clucked his tongue. “We’ve also counted some Water of Life. I’ve put it away since it’s more precious—there’s twelve drops that were mostly concentrated in a few storage rings.”

Li Hao nodded again. He understood the situation. Mu Xiaorong and the other metamorphoses were the only ones with the right to possess such a treasure. Regular Novas did not.

Twelve drops were neither a lot nor too little. Of what he’d had before, he’d given four drops to He Yong and one drop each to Yang Shan and Qin Lian. He only had three drops left, but was now greatly replenished to fifteen.

To him, Water of Life was worth only ten thousand mysterious power stones each. But if he sold them or someone took them from him, he would value them at one hundred thousand stones each.

“There’s also quite a few origin weapons—twenty-two of them. But… they’re almost all gold rank… That makes them lower rank… There’s only two arcane rank and not a single earth rank…” Mu Lin looked at Li Hao.

“Some of them were broken in battle.” Li Hao smiled. “And some are still in people’s bodies. It’s one thing to seize their storage rings, I can’t actually dissect someone to take their origin weapon. That would be beyond the pale.”

Mu Lin was speechless. That wasn’t what I meant. I mean that you have so many origin weapons here, are you sure you’re not going to return some of them? Li Hao thinks I’m saying that there’s too few! Mu Xiaorong and the others must have origin weapons in their bodies, but just like the kid says, there’s no way to take it from these guys. We’d have to split them open.

“Twenty-two origin weapons… that’ll do!” Li Hao shook his head with a sigh. “That’s still too few. So it seems that one’s gains aren’t up to par if I don’t uproot a major faction. So many people, but so few riches. Their combined total is only a little better than the Xus. No, strictly speaking, there may not be a difference.”

The Xus had had three earth rank origin weapons and the Goldensky Lotus in their treasury, as well as the mirror fragment… These items could not be assessed in terms of money. There was also the sky rank weapon that the little sword had swallowed. When those were added to the sum, what he’d netted from the Xus was just as much as his gains from this operation.

This was the drawback of not pulling someone up by the roots. Whether it was the Four Seas Company or Skystar Colosseum, their main wealth was with the Ministry of Finance, not them. It could be readily seen from this how wealthy the ministry must be. It would be decent if these establishments could retain a year’s worth of gains. Most of it was handed in at the end of the year.

“There are many other treasures, most of which we couldn’t recognize,” Mu Lin continued. “I put them all into a storage ring. There are also a few dao comprehension weapons with mediocre effect. I’ve put them away separately as well…”

He handed a few storage rings to Li Hao and then turned his gaze to the small mountain of mysterious power stones. “You should store all of this too. I discovered that some of the rings are pretty big and spacious enough to hold all of this.”

Li Hao nodded, then looked at the martial masters holding onto the last remnants of mysterious power stones. “Split the remaining nine thousand among yourselves! It’s a token of my appreciation and your bonus for hard work. When one of us eats meat, the rest get some soup!”

Mu Lin wanted to say something, but the martial masters roared with excitement, “The commander is just and generous!”

Nine thousand pieces meant that each person would receive approximately ten pieces each. Although there was a small mountain of that resource behind Li Hao, they knew it wasn’t theirs. Instead, they were very excited by the fact that Li Hao would offer so many rewards. Stones and a storage ring each? How wonderful! These were tremendous gains!

Mu Lin didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, there was nothing else to say. Nine thousand pieces might have been an astronomical figure before, but compared to the small mountain beside him… Mu Lin suddenly thought nothing of it.

I’m getting too full of myself! Mu Lin knew that it was because he’d seen too many truly precious objects that mysterious power stones were nothing anymore. I counted two million of those today!

Li Hao was truly astonishing. He’d taken just one month to seize more than a combined total of three million mysterious power stones and fifty-some origin weapons.

Roughly two dozen Novas had died to his hands in this month alone, as well as a couple of metamorphoses. Seen in that light, this level of harvest seemed reasonable. If he included the earlier drops of Water of Life, his total income was more than ten million mysterious power stones. This was more astonishing than raiding a medium-sized ruin!

From this, he could tell that this era was a very prosperous one. However, only the upper echelon of society flowed with milk and honey. The dregs of society were struck with poverty. Just take a look at Yao Si—he’d washed his hands of matters for many years, but could still drink tea brewed with Water of Life. One such cup would be worth one hundred stones in the Nine Dragons Pavilion. Yao Si was very rich!

etvolare’s Thoughts

He’ll have to raid the Ministry of Finance next to satisfy his desires...