Chapter 173: “Heaven’s Dao” Forced Delisting and the “Bubble” Theory

The Old Scholar’s roar had echoed like a cuckoo crying blood, reverberating endlessly through the deathly silent factory.

That kind of “as long as you give me one hundred million, I can create a new world” startup-mad-dog temperament had been so thick it was almost about to condense into substance.

Chu Feng fell silent.

He looked at the engineer’s soul before him, crazed as if possessed, and an absurd sense of familiarity surged in his heart.

Who would have known that in his previous life’s financial empire, there had been countless people like this every single day—holding all kinds of wild, sky-high PPTs, kneeling before him, crying and begging him to invest.

He had never expected that after transmigrating into the Cultivation World, he would still be able to relive old dreams.

“Ahem.”

Chu Feng cleared his throat and slowly spoke, his tone calm and professional,

“This… sir, please don’t get excited yet.”

“Before talking about ‘investment’, we must first conduct a ‘project review’.”

“According to my preliminary observation, your ‘project’ seems to have encountered a ‘catastrophic failure’.”

“Can you tell me, in which link did your ‘business model’ develop a ‘fatal flaw’?”

“Review? Flaw?”

The Old Scholar froze. He had not expected Chu Feng to ask such a “professional” question.

The fanaticism in his eyes gradually faded, replaced by the excitement of having found a kindred spirit.

“Y-You… you really are a professional!”

He floated to that gigantic “Heaven’s Dao No.1”, and with a posture akin to caressing a lover, gently touched the cold steel.

“My model should have been perfect!”

“I defined the ‘spiritual energy’ of this world as a higher-tier form of ‘energy’.”

“I defined ‘runes’ as a kind of ‘programming language’ that could be parsed and replicated.”

“I defined ‘artifact refinement’ as a form of ‘industrial manufacturing’ that could be standardized.”

“I built this ‘miracle factory’. I thought I would usher in a brand-new era—an era where everyone could enjoy the fruits of ‘cultivation’ simply by operating machines!”

His voice brimmed with pride.

“But I overlooked the most critical point…”

His voice sank again, filled with bitterness,

“The cost of acquiring ‘energy’.”

“In order to drive ‘Heaven’s Dao No.1’, I designed a ‘deep-layer spirit-vein extraction array’. It could, like tree roots, plunge deep into the earth and directly draw the purest source spiritual energy from the main trunk of the spirit veins.”

“Its efficiency was ten thousand times! Ten million times that of those native cultivators who sat in meditation and breathed in and out!”

“And it was precisely because of this…” The Old Scholar’s soul trembled violently, bone-deep fear surfacing in his eyes.

“…that I angered ‘it’.”

“‘It’?”

Chu Feng keenly seized upon this keyword.

“Yes, ‘it’!”

The Old Scholar’s voice suddenly rose, sharp with neurotic intensity,

“The… ‘will’ of this world! Or rather, the ‘rules’ themselves!”

“You call it… ‘Heaven’s Dao’!”

The moment the words “Heaven’s Dao” were spoken, the entire space seemed to shudder. From the dome above, an invisible, icy will swept across, making everyone feel a chill crawl down their spines.

“In the third year of my factory’s full operation, disaster descended.”

The Old Scholar sank into painful memories.

“The domain I was in—every single spirit vein—was completely drained by me within just three years.”

“Mountains withered, rivers ran dry, all things declined… I turned a world full of vitality into a lifeless desert.”

“Then, ‘it’ came.”

“That was not a lightning tribulation, not a heavenly punishment… it was something far more terrifying.”

“‘Rule erasure’.”

“Above my factory, there appeared a gigantic vortex composed purely of laws.”

“It did not attack me, nor did it attack my factory.”

“It merely… modified the rules.”

“In an instant, the concept of ‘combustion’ disappeared.”

“The concept of ‘spiritual energy conversion’ was assigned an infinitely large ‘loss rate’.”

“The concept of ‘metal sturdiness’ was reduced to the level of tofu.”

“And so, my ‘Heaven’s Dao No.1’—this precise miracle composed of hundreds of millions of components—collapsed from within in a single instant, disintegrating itself into a pile of scrap iron.”

“And I, as the creator of all this, had my soul branded with the mark of ‘rule contamination’, eternally imprisoned here, becoming the gravekeeper of the ‘industrial graveyard’ I created with my own hands.”

After finishing, the Old Scholar drooped his head dejectedly, like a puppet drained of all strength.

The entire factory fell into silence once more.

Shock was written all over the faces of Feng Zhiruo and Murong Xue.

Directly modifying the underlying rules of the world?

That kind of power had already exceeded their understanding!

This was no Heaven’s Dao—this was clearly authority that only a creator god should possess!

Zhao Wuji’s little notebook scribbled furiously.

【Heaven’s Dao Risk Assessment Report (Preliminary Version):】

【Risk Characterization: Ultimate, irresistible force; a ‘regulatory authority’兼‘central bank’ possessing ‘market rule formulation and modification rights’.】

【Behavior Pattern: When a certain ‘market participant’ (such as a previous transmigrator) causes ‘systemic risk’ to the ‘market foundation’ (such as spirit veins), Heaven’s Dao will initiate a ‘forced delisting’ process, carrying out ‘dimensionality reduction strikes’ and ‘physical liquidation’ by modifying the ‘game rules’.】

【Conclusion: Heaven’s Dao is the biggest ‘dealer’ in this world—and it cannot afford to lose.】

After hearing all this, not only did Chu Feng feel no fear, the curve of his lips instead grew wider and wider.

“So that’s how it was… so that’s how it was!”

He clapped his hands excitedly.

“I understand now!”

“Your failure was not a technical failure, but a ‘financial model’ failure!”

The Old Scholar abruptly raised his head:

“Financial model?”

“Yes!”

A glint flashed in Chu Feng’s eyes—the light of a financial behemoth spotting perfect prey,

“Your ‘industrial cultivation’ was, in essence, a ‘heavy-asset, high-energy-consumption’ ‘real economy’.”

“You treated ‘spirit veins’ as ‘coal’ that could be mined endlessly, engaging in extensive plunder, without considering ‘sustainable development’ or ‘environmental protection’!”

“This is called malicious overdrafting of ‘natural resources’, triggering ‘deflation’ and an ‘economic crisis’!”

“As the ‘central bank’, Heaven’s Dao naturally had to step in and conduct ‘macro-control’ on you!”

The more Chu Feng spoke, the more excited he became. He walked up to the Old Scholar, like a patiently guiding mentor.

“Your path was too narrow, my friend!”

“The real economy is exhausting!”

“We capital players emphasize ‘light-asset’ operations!”

“Why work so hard digging mines?”

“Why not just ‘issue currency’ directly?”

“Why build factories and produce things yourself?”

“Why not let others do the ‘OEM’, while we ‘set standards’, ‘create brands’, and ‘monopolize channels’?”

“Your steam engine was used to pump water.”

“My Ascension Group is used to pump ‘human hearts’!”

“Your failure was because you created a massive ‘asset bubble’, and then Heaven’s Dao popped it.”

“And I…”

Chu Feng pointed at himself, smiling like a fox that had just stolen a chicken,

“From the very beginning, I never planned to create ‘assets’. What I created was the ‘bubble’ itself!”

“I made everyone believe that this bubble would expand infinitely.”

“And so, everyone would疯狂地 rush in, using their own value to keep this bubble from bursting.”

“I am the bubble, and the bubble is me!”

The Old Scholar’s soul stared blankly at Chu Feng. His brain, stuffed full of industrial theories, experienced its first crash because of these unheard-of “crooked financial doctrines”.

He felt as though he had opened a door to a new world.

A door… leading to the abyss.

He looked at Chu Feng. His lips trembled for a long time before he squeezed out a sentence:

“Y-You… you’re even more like a devil than I am…”

“You flatter me.”

Chu Feng smiled modestly.

He extended his hand:

“All right, when fellow townsmen meet, tears fill their eyes.”

“No more words. Since we’re both in the same ‘transmigrator’ ‘concept sector’, hand over your ‘industrial cultivation’ ‘technical data package’ to me as an ‘asset transfer’.”

“As compensation, I can consider issuing you a ‘commemorative edition stock’.”

Old Scholar: “……”

He suddenly felt that being erased by Heaven’s Dao might… actually have been an act of mercy.

He sighed resignedly. His soul transformed into a stream of data, surging toward Chu Feng’s glabella.

“Take it… all my theories, all my blueprints… and my final warning…”

“Be careful of ‘Heaven’s Dao’… its tolerance for ‘bubbles’ is zero…”

A vast torrent of information crashed into Chu Feng’s sea of consciousness.

Steam cores, differential engines, spiritual-energy pistons, gear sword arrays, autonomous demonic puppets… a massive and complete industrial technology tree slowly unfolded in his mind.

Just as Chu Feng was immersed in this ocean of knowledge—

“Boom—!”

With a thunderous explosion, the dome of the “miracle factory” was violently torn open by a savage force, ripping out a gigantic gap!

Blinding purple lightning and an ice-cold, utterly merciless sword intent descended from the heavens at the same time!

Lei Qianjue’s twisted, venomous roar resounded throughout the space.

“Chu Feng!”

“Your death has arrived!”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep