Emperor’s Domination

Surprises were to be expected at Moneyfall, plenty of winners and losers being made every second, not to mention the casualties.

However, something caught everyone’s attention in the last two days.

“There’s an idiot below a cliff to the west.” This story spread around.

“What do you mean?” People naturally became curious.

“Well, the insane guy is feeding true coins to ants for several days now. There’s no curing him.” The storyteller laughed.

This particular story traveled across Moneyfall and many people came for a look.

Sure enough, a youth was squatting down. He wore a full robe, a nondescript fella that no one would give a second glance to.

This so-called idiot had a spatial pouch in his hand, who knows how rich he was?

There was a line of ants coming from a gap in the rocks all the way to the youth. He would take out one coin for each ant. 

They would bite it then returned to the gap. A while later, these ones would come back out with something resembling a speck of sand.

They placed these specks down in front of the youth and were rewarded with another true coin. The cycle would repeat from then on.

People took a good look at these specks of sand. They were the size of a rice grain with a craggy texture. They weren’t special at all outside of a slight glow.

However, this youth was so interested in it. He was trading true coins for them, quite an unbelievable spectacle.

“What the hell is he doing?” The crowd was lost.

One curious soul even copied him and got a speck of sand. An ancestor tried as well but they couldn’t notice anything special.

“It’s just sand.” One ancestor used his heavenly gaze for a full sweep and found nothing: “It’s infused with a little mineral, that’s all.”

Even the ancestors failed to know what was going on, let alone everyone else.

“How long has he been here?” Another question came up.

“A few days now.” One passerby shook his head: “He used several pouches of true coins already and probably got a small pile of sand in return.”

“Hey, what are you up to?” Someone finally asked the youth.

“Just having fun.” He chuckled and didn’t stop feeding the ants.

Strange enough, the ants worked hard and didn’t stop at all, continuing to move the coins back to their nest.

“Huh…” The cultivators were speechless at this answer.

Spending several pouches of coins just to have fun?

“Young people are so confusing nowadays.” One old man shook his head and left.

“Damn, if you buy wildlands with this money, that’s more acceptable. At least you might get lucky from this. But feeding them to the ants, there’s something wrong with you.”

“Are you stupid?” Another looked at him with doubts in their eyes: “Wasting your chance here in Waterfall.”

“I have plenty of money to do whatever I want.” The youth answered flatly.

“Okay, okay, you have plenty of money, but also stupid.” People began to leave.

This famous person, albeit not for a good reason, was naturally Li Qiye. He didn’t mind the insults thrown around about him and continued exchanging coins for sand.

Due to his fame, waves of people came and went to see him. They didn’t know that he was the First Disciple of Longevity, only aware that he was the stupid ant-feeder.

One felt such indignation at this act: “This world is so unfair, how can an idiot have so much money? If I have that much, I would probably get really lucky at a wildland.”

Eventually, Li Qiye finally stopped and whistled. He put away the sand and smiled: “Okay, little friends, I have to go now.”

The ants actually turned to look at him as if they didn’t want him to leave. Of course, he had spent so much coins in the last few days. In fact, people even thought about robbing him out of greed.

Ultimately, he was quite pleased with himself after gathering enough crystal sand regardless of the public sentiment.

He left the cliff and continued northward until he reached a large river.

“Oh, that rich ant-feeding idiot is here.” People recognized him right away.

This comment incited a wave of laughters. Those who haven’t seen him before still have heard of his nickname.

“Hey, rich guy, why don’t you try land calling since you have so much money?” Someone tried to persuade him.

Li Qiye only smiled and headed for the shore of the lake, looking over yonder.

“Going north requires crossing this lake.” Many people were looking across the lake as well, not just Li Qiye.

“Can we fly?” A cultivator asked a friend.

“No, flying is impossible, we have to pay up. Fish, turtles, or boats can take us over.” The friend shook his head.

“We have a big group so let’s get a big boat.” This cultivator looked at his dozen companions and said.

“You’re joking. A big boat is expensive, around 80,000 true coins of the True Hero level.” The friend shook his head again.

“Damn, really? A boat costing that much is insane.” The cultivator became startled.

“Everything is expensive at Waterfall.” The friend smiled wryly.

“What’s the cheapest way then? Let’s do that.” The cultivator was helpless since they weren’t that rich and needed to save as much as possible.

“The golden fish are the cheapest, just three thousand True Warrior coins.” The friend said.

“Then let’s do that, we need to go offer some incense at the shrine too. Need to keep costs down.”

“No, we need to ride the turtles.” The friend disagreed: “The fish are very dangerous, we’ll die for sure if anything unexpected were to happen in the lake.”

The group debated and settled on using turtles.

“Clank!” They threw down coins and a turtle rose from the water. The coins touched its shell and disappeared.

“Let’s go.” The group jumped on the turtle and barely had enough room. The turtle began taking them to the other side.

One cultivator chose to spend 3,000 True Warrior coins. A golden fish jumped out of the water and ate the coins. He jumped on it without any hesitation and started his journey.