Dao of Money

253. Book of floors

As Yalan tore the puppet apart, Chen Ren was busy doing something far less dramatic.He shoved as many healing pills into his mouth as he could.

There were bone-mending pills, blood-restoration pills, and internal injury stabilizers, all taken one after another without a second thought. He didn’t care how uncomfortable it felt mixing them together. Right now, the only thing that mattered was fixing the damage before it got worse.

Even as a cultivator, he knew better than to rely on natural recovery in a place like the pagoda.

After swallowing everything, he leaned back against a broken stone slab, exhaling slowly. For a brief moment, he wished he had thought ahead enough to carry something as simple as a bed in his spatial ring. The cold stone pressed against his back, sending dull pain through his already battered body.

Still, that didn’t matter as much.

What mattered was that he was alive.

For a moment back there, he had been certain he wouldn’t escape the puppet’s grasp. But it seemed the heavens weren’t done with him just yet.

As he rested, Wang Jun muttered from his side, “Next time you decide to walk into that bastard’s workshop, make sure the cat is with you. She’s far more reliable.”

Chen Ren snorted faintly. “I know she is, but it’s not like I didn’t keep you alive.”

Wang Jun replied immediately, “Yeah, thank you for not dropping the only person here who might actually know something useful about the pagoda.”

Chen Ren let out a small grunt. “Great way to thank me.”

While the two bickered, Yalan walked toward them, her larger form shrinking with each step until she returned to her usual size. When she saw Chen Ren leaning against the stone, her expression tightened slightly.

“You should have waited for me before going to fight something like that,” she said.

Chen Ren shrugged, though the movement made him wince as pain shot through his body. But he still managed to speak through the pain.

“That came out of nowhere. It was a trap even Wang Jun couldn’t detect. And I sent the signal hours ago for you and Princess Yanyue to come, but you didn’t. Where were you?”

Yalan stretched lazily, as if the fight from earlier hadn’t taken much out of her at all.

“I got busy,” she said. “Ran into some crazy puppets. Dozens of them tried to kill me, so it took some time to deal with them.” She paused, then added almost casually, “I also found an underground chamber filled with rare metals.”

Chen Ren’s eyes lit up immediately.

“Did you take them all?”

Yalan smiled and raised her paw slightly. Only then did Chen Ren notice the spatial ring sitting there, one he had bought her back on the fifth floor.

“Of course I did,” she said. “There’s enough in there to make Feiyu and Hong Yi drool for years.”

Chen Ren let out a small grin despite his condition. “I’m definitely getting you fish when I find some.”

Yalan whipped her tail. “Don’t treat me like a house cat.” Then her expression shifted as she looked directly at him. “What did you find? That puppet wasn’t chasing you for no reason.”

Chen Ren exhaled slowly.

“Yeah… we found a workshop. I’m not entirely sure what was in it though. Let me check.”

As he spoke, he reached into his spatial ring and pulled out the parchments and books he had collected earlier, laying them out in front of them.

Yalan leaned in closer, glancing over them before purring slightly. “They’re blank.”

Chen Ren nodded. “For now.”

He then took out the small vial he had found earlier, the one filled with the faintly glowing silvery liquid.

Ignoring the ache in his body, he opened the cap carefully. A small part of him hoped this would work, because if it didn’t, then everything he had just gone through (even almost dying) would have been for nothing, and that would be far more frustrating than the injuries he was dealing with right now.

He carefully began placing small drops of the silvery liquid onto the parchments and books, making sure not to waste even a single drop.

For a moment, nothing happened.

The pages only looked damp, the liquid soaking into them without any visible change.

Wang Jun let out a snort. “So all of that was for nothing.”

Chen Ren didn’t respond immediately. His eyes stayed fixed on the pages.

“Wait,” he said after a second. “It’s happening.”

The colour of the parchment began to shift subtly. First, there was a faint sheen spread across the surface, and then the pages gave off a soft glow. In the next moment, lines started to form, words appearing one after another as if being written in real time.

Chen Ren’s eyes widened, and he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

He had been right.

Xuan Mo had hidden everything in invisible ink and had even set up a deadly trap for anyone who came close to uncovering it. And yet, despite everything, Chen Ren had managed to get through it.

Without wasting any time, he leaned forward and began reading.

Some of the pages were filled with detailed blueprints, and they were all designs of different puppets, their internal structures, mechanisms, and even notes on how they functioned. There were also schematics of various weapons that Xuan Mo seemed to have been working on.

Chen Ren didn’t linger on those.

He quickly stored them into his spatial ring. They were valuable, no doubt, but not what he needed right now. What he was searching for was information about this floor, about the pagoda, and most importantly, the master lift.

So he kept reading.

Beyond the blueprints, there were also journal-like entries written by Xuan Mo himself. They spoke about his creations, his experiments, and even his involvement in the pagoda.

Unfortunately, most of it wasn’t immediately useful.

The entries focused more on why he had agreed to help build parts of the pagoda rather than giving any clear insight into its structure. And from what Chen Ren could tell, the answer was simple—Xuan Mo had found it interesting.

Most of the parchments turned out to be like that, and Chen Ren could only hope the books would be different.

There were four of them.

He opened the first one, but it proved just as disappointing. It contained Xuan Mo’s personal records on metals—detailed notes on their properties, how to refine them, and even methods to forge them into stronger materials. The second book followed a similar pattern, going deeper into the topic and even listing out several mines hidden beneath the earth that Xuan Mo had once used to gather his resources.

It wasn’t useless information. Actually, far from it.

Chen Ren was actually very interested in it. If those mines still existed after all these years, they could become an incredible source of wealth and materials. But that was something he couldn’t focus on right now. So he kept flipping.

The third book didn’t help either. It was more of a historical record—detailing the evolution of puppet-making techniques, how they had improved over time, and how certain designs had come into existence. Interesting, but not what he needed.

Then he reached the last book. The moment he opened it, his eyes widened.

There were maps drawn on it.

As he turned the first few pages, it became clear what he was looking at—these were maps of the pagoda floors.

A grin slowly spread across his face.

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He looked at Wang Jun and Yalan and muttered, “We hit the jackpot.”

Wang Jun frowned slightly. “What’s a jackpot?”

Chen Ren didn’t answer. He simply kept smiling as he flipped through the pages.

The book contained detailed descriptions and layouts of each floor, starting from the tutorial level and moving upward. Entire city maps were drawn out clearly, divided into sections that highlighted different areas, structures, and resources that could be found, even in Goldspire city.

Chen Ren flipped faster, going past the earlier floors until he reached the last section that was about the eighth floor.

For a brief moment, he felt a hint of disappointment that the book didn’t contain information on the final few floors, but he quickly pushed that aside. What he already had was far more than enough, and expecting more would simply be greed.

For now, Chen Ren focused only on what he had.

Unfortunately, the records of the eight floor looked outdated. They were clearly from a time when the cities were still inhabited, when puppets worked under human control instead of roaming freely as they did now. Xuan Mo had most likely taken these from the original creator of the pagoda and hidden them away in his workshop.

That meant one thing. There was no guarantee the information was still completely accurate.

With how drastically the eighth floor had changed, Chen Ren couldn’t be sure how much of it still held true. But at this point, he wasn’t looking for everything.

He only needed one thing—the location of the master lift.

He flipped through the pages more quickly now, his eyes scanning each line, growing more impatient with every second that passed without finding what he needed. The longer it took, the more restless he became, until finally he saw it.

Right at the end of the section, there was a short paragraph.

It stated that the location of the master lift was the most important secret of every floor, and for the eighth floor, there was no better place to hide it than the fourth city, protected beneath the [Grand Aegis Array].

Chen Ren’s eyes immediately lifted from the page.

He looked up toward the sky.

The floating cities hung in the air above them, and his gaze locked onto the one farthest away—the smallest among them.

Beside him, Yalan frowned slightly. “What are you looking at?”

Chen Ren pointed upward. “The master lift should be there.”

“And how exactly are we supposed to get there? None of us can fly,” Wang Jun said from the side.

Chen Ren fell silent. The head wasn’t wrong. If Li Xuan had been here, they could have borrowed a flying sword, but he wasn’t. And Chen Ren himself didn’t own one either. For a brief moment, he even considered going back down to find one somehow.

But as that thought crossed his mind, another idea formed. His expression shifted slightly as he lowered his gaze back to the book and began flipping through the pages again, this time with a different purpose in mind.

Yalan’s pupils contracted to slits. “What are you doing?”

Chen Ren didn’t look up as he flipped through the pages. “This book has information on the entire eighth floor. If the master lift is recorded here, then there should also be something about how to move between the floating cities. If there are lifts between floors, there should be ways to move between cities too.”

With that in mind, he continued turning the pages, scanning through every section carefully.

There were mentions of certain puppets that once carried people across the cities, transporting them through the air with ease. But Chen Ren quickly dismissed that idea. In their current state, the puppets weren’t servants anymore—they were killers. There was no way those same methods would still work.

Still, he kept searching. But before he could find anything useful, a sudden blast lit up the sky.

Chen Ren’s head snapped upward.

Sparks flared in the distance, rising from the other side of the city and bursting into the air. It wasn’t random, it was a signal. And all three of them understood it immediately. Princess Yanyue had either found something or she was in trouble.

Chen Ren’s brows furrowed. He had already been wondering why she hadn’t arrived with Yalan, and now it was clear that she had been delayed. But the bigger problem was how to reach her in time.

He couldn’t run like this. Not with his body in its current condition. For a brief moment, frustration flickered through him, but then an idea surfaced.

Chen Ren turned toward Yalan.

“We need to get there quickly,” he said. “But I don’t think I can move fast enough like this.”

Yalan’s whiskers twitched as she immediately understood what he was implying.

“I’m not a mount.”

Chen Ren smiled faintly. “No one said you are. But you know as well as I do that there’s no other way for me to move fast right now.”

From the side, Wang Jun let out a quiet snort, sounding almost amused as he watched Yalan’s reaction. Chen Ren shot Wang Jun a glare, cutting off whatever comment the head was about to make. Yalan let out a low growl, clearly not pleased, but before she could argue further, Chen Ren moved.

He stored the book back into his spatial ring, then picked Wang Jun up and secured him at his hip. With his other hand, he pulled out a talisman and activated it, making the head vanish from sight.

Wang Jun’s voice grumbled faintly, “I hate not being able to talk.”

Chen Ren replied dryly, “You talk enough when you can. Makes up for it.”

Only then did he look back at Yalan.

She stared at him for a few seconds, her expression conflicted, before letting out a quiet sigh. Without another word, qi began to surge around her body. In the next moment, her form started to grow, expanding rapidly until she stood far larger than before, just a little smaller than Little Yuze.

Chen Ren watched for a brief moment, still finding it hard to get used to the fact that she wasn’t just a small cat like she usually appeared.

Then he moved. Without wasting any time, he climbed onto her back.

Yalan let out a small grunt as she adjusted to his weight. Chen Ren steadied himself and patted her lightly. “Let’s go.”

“Don’t do that,” she snapped, clearly annoyed, but she didn’t argue further.

Instead, she crouched low, and then jumped.

In a single motion, they cleared multiple buildings, landing on the next stretch of road as Yalan immediately picked up speed. She dashed through the abandoned streets, her movements swift and fluid despite her size.

Chen Ren held her white fur on tightly.

The world blurred around him as they moved, broken buildings flashing past in his vision. Every sharp turn sent a jolt through his body, forcing him to tighten his grip just to keep from being thrown off. Even Wang Jun let out the occasional muffled scream from his side.

Yalan ignored it all. She simply ran faster.

As they sped through the city, another bolt of light shot into the sky ahead.

Chen Ren’s expression tightened. That was the second signal. Whatever Princess Yanyue was dealing with, they needed to hurry.

***

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