Chapter 27: The Diverse Moonlight Clan |
One hour later.
With Yang Chunsha’s magic helping, they moved diagonally upward.
This woman’s earth magic was quite practiced; she could excavate rock layers and compress soil.
Of course, the excavated rubble and mud were piled behind them, so they were more like moving cavities through the earth.
She dug ahead and filled in behind.
Because of that, her multiversal power was nearly exhausted.
“You worked for an hour and you’re done? How did you dig such a big tunnel?” Wu Zhong complained.
Yang Chunsha answered plaintively, “I only work two hours a day: one hour digging in the morning, one hour transporting rock and soil in the afternoon. At five kilometers per day, it took me seven full years to dig this.”
Wu Zhong did the math and exclaimed, “You dug more than twelve thousand seven hundred kilometers?”
Wu Zhong was genuinely surprised by her perseverance—seven years of the same grind.
The total railway mileage in Gan Province was only four thousand seven hundred kilometers; she alone had dug almost three times that.
“Respect...respect.”
Wu Zhong asked, “So how long do you need to rest before your Source Energy is fully recovered?”
Yang Chunsha rubbed her hands, glanced at Infinite Summer, and said, “Multiversal power is all about quota—it refers to how much energy from other universes you can borrow per day.”
“When they say your Source Energy is exhausted, it actually means today’s borrowing quota is used up...”
“Unless I repay the borrowed energy, I can’t use multiversal power again today.”
Wu Zhong’s mouth twitched as he looked at Infinite Summer: “Huh?”
Infinite Summer nodded. “That’s right...”
Irritated, he put his hand on Yang Chunsha’s shoulder. “How much do you owe?”
Yang Chunsha spoke softly: “Four...four hundred...”
Infinite Summer was stunned. “How much? You can borrow four hundred a day?”
“No...I can only borrow twenty per day.” Yang Chunsha waved her hand. “But it’s almost month-end, so I pay back in one lump at the end of the month.”
Wu Zhong mocked, “I know this—so you’re on monthly payments?”
Infinite Summer said calmly, “I’ll only repay twenty for you. The rest of the energy you must pay back yourself.”
After saying that, he removed his hand.
Yang Chunsha closed her eyes to concentrate, then sprang back to life. Light shone from her chest, pages flipped, and she manipulated the rock and soil again.
Wu Zhong followed and asked Infinite Summer a few questions; only then did he understand how multiversal power worked.
It turned out the system wasn’t simply about cultivating more energy; it mainly functioned as a quota.
If you had a hundred Bits of multiversal power in your body, each day you could borrow the equivalent amount of special energy from your counterparts in other universes—whether it was internal force, spiritual energy, ripple energy, or some particulate energy.
“A counterpart in another universe?” Wu Zhong asked in surprise.
Infinite Summer nodded. “A perceiver senses the creature in another universe most similar to them—usually someone who looks remarkably alike and has the same or a similar name.”
“Then you form an entangled connection and can transfer energy between each other; we call that a ‘host’.”
“A Level One perceiver only has a single host, so the initial random host you sense depends a lot on luck. If they’re strong, you’re strong.”
“If they’re useless, or if their world has nothing exceptional, or they’re even weaker than you, then that perceiver is basically useless for the first few tiers.”
Wu Zhong understood: if the counterpart in another universe was an ordinary person fixing cars, sensing them wouldn’t help—you couldn’t borrow much.
On the other hand, if your multiversal self was some martial prodigy, magic master, or sect leader, you could benefit greatly by borrowing some of their strength.
“How do you repay borrowed energy once you’ve used it all?” Wu Zhong asked, mainly puzzled by that.
Infinite Summer explained, “You repay with energy from our world.”
“Multiversal power is a universal intermediate-state energy. You can pay back with anything inside your body—electric energy, solar energy, even your own stamina.”
“If pushed, you can repay with your lifespan, life force, or mental energy.”
“As the saying goes, pay back and borrowing again won’t be hard. If a host gets drained and remains weak for long, they develop a strong resistance and can refuse to lend.”
“Some perceivers, to get stronger, cultivate their hosts first and deliberately repay huge interest multiples so the host gets the illusion of having a ‘cheat,’ making them like to lend energy.”
“Nurturing a high-potential host in another universe benefits both sides.”
“A perceiver and their host complement and accomplish each other.”
Wu Zhong drew a deep breath—this wasn’t a cultivation system, it was a multiversal credit card.
He realized, “So restoring multiversal power is simple: inject energy into yourself.”
“You can charge up a bit or get sun exposure to slowly absorb energy. If that’s not enough, you can drain your stamina or physical energy and refine it.”
“But storage has an upper limit. Carrying Bitcoin can expand that limit.”
“Bitcoin acts like an external energy bank; whoever holds it owns that extra capacity, so Bitcoin is hard currency among perceivers.”
“How do you increase that quota?” Wu Zhong asked.
Infinite Summer said, “The easiest way is to borrow and use more. The more you borrow, the higher your quota naturally grows.”
“What? This woman worked for seven years and only has a quota of twenty Bits?” Wu Zhong was shocked.
Infinite Summer scoffed. “Because she chronically defaults—she only repays once a month. Over seven years she only repaid eighty-four times.”
“With such a repayment cycle, Source Energy will rise extremely slowly.”
“And unsurprisingly, she probably paid little or no interest, which slows it even more.”
Wu Zhong looked at Yang Chunsha. “Is it hard to repay twenty Bits? Why do you always wait a month?”
Yang Chunsha answered plaintively, “One Bit of multiversal power, in raw energy terms, equals over ninety thousand kilowatt-hours.”
“How am I supposed to repay that? Charging the human body is not practical.”
“Even if I limited current to a dangerous 30 mA, to input one kilowatt-hour into my body would take ninety days!”
“That efficiency is worse than storing fat—one kilogram of fat contains energy equivalent to more than ten kilowatt-hours.”
Wu Zhong was stunned and said blankly, “Then how do you repay?”
Yang Chunsha sighed. “I scoured forums. They said if a newcomer hasn’t taken the Lightningwood to increase electrical resistance, and owes too much multiversal power, the optimal choice is to buy ‘Kun Blood’ from the platform store.”
“Kun Blood contains enormous energy—just one gram lets a human absorb energy equivalent to a hundred thousand kilowatt-hours.”
Wu Zhong said, “Isn’t that great? One gram should pay off one Bit.”
“Can’t you afford it? You repay monthly, so you must be able to buy it.”
Yang Chunsha said softly, “It’s not that the price is expensive—one gram of Kun Blood is only ten thousand yuan now.”
“People think it’s super affordable, but ironically, it’s unaffordable...”
Wu Zhong looked puzzled. “How can cheap be unaffordable? One gram for ten thousand? That’s cheaper than electricity!”
Yang Chunsha explained, “It’s cheap because Kun Blood is abundant, and only living organisms can absorb it. Its energy can’t be extracted by industrial means.”
“Also, who would send a single gram? There are no domestic club delivery points. They only set up stations outside the five main countries; the courier costs would be in the millions before a mercenary delivers it.”
“Most importantly, the platform sells Kun Blood in one-pound packs as the minimum unit, and they usually can’t subdivide it. That means I have to buy 500 grams at once—and it’s a single lump!”
“Kun Blood is a gelatinous mass that supposedly contains strong electromagnetic interaction...”
“With my strength, cutting it with a knife, smashing it with a hammer, drilling it, blowing it with dynamite, even crushing it with an excavator won’t break off a single chunk.”
“I have to swallow a whole pound in one go...it then melts inside me. The energy is so vast that, if I don’t quickly convert it into Source Energy to pay debt, I would explode.”
“So every time I consume it, I must first accumulate a month’s debt to be able to digest the Kun Blood...”
Wu Zhong finally understood and lamented how bleak the lower levels were everywhere.
He pictured the woman desperately trying every means to split a blood-colored jelly and failing—such helplessness.
Infinite Summer asked, “Oh? Why don’t you eat Kun Blood every day?”
“You can heavily overpay interest on the repayment, even if you only use one Bit you could repay five hundred times over. You must know that.”
“Digesting Kun Blood and cultivating your host would be beneficial—why hoard it and slow your progress?”
Yang Chunsha’s mouth twitched.
She gave Infinite Summer a look like, “Are you out of touch with reality?”
“Brother, my Summer Brother...you speak lightly—eat 500 grams of Kun Blood every day? I’m not born into that fortune.”
“The first time I repaid that way I did exactly that. My host exploded in power overnight and was mistaken for a genius, getting into a key class at the Magic Academy.”
“But I only increased my multiversal quota by 0.5 Bit. Eat like that the next day? Who can sustain that?”
“Later I economized and eventually could only eat one Kun Blood meal every one or two months to survive.”
Wu Zhong nodded, fully understanding the helplessness.
Yes—Kun Blood cheap per gram but sold in monstrous minimum quantities. Buying a pound at a time is not cheap; consuming it daily is impossible.
So she was forced to save for a once-a-month feast.
Infinite Summer’s question showed he’d never been poor. Kun Blood sounded ridiculously cheap—one gram for ten thousand—but a single meal would cost five million, which is astronomical.
Infinite Summer’s perceiver training probably came with ample funds from the start, so he couldn’t grasp the tight budgeting of the lower tiers.
Wu Zhong sympathized, then suddenly froze.
He realized, “Wait—you spend sixty million yuan a year just to use multiversal power?”
While Yang Chunsha dug the tunnel, she casually said, “About that, is there a problem?”
“I...you...ah?”
Wu Zhong’s scalp tingled, and her pitiful tone made him oddly sentimental for a moment.
In truth, even people scraping by in the disaster world usually aren’t starving; some lower-tier folks were surprisingly well-off.
No wonder Infinite Summer said, “If you don’t have money, don’t play with multiversal power.” It really burns cash.
For a bronze-level mercenary like Yang Chunsha who exhausts her Source Energy daily, debt repayment could cost tens of millions per year.
Wu Zhong swallowed. “No wonder it’s called Source Energy—literally costs sources of money.”
“You said you were dirt poor—how could you earn so much? Sixty million! That’s sixty million!”
Yang Chunsha lipped: “Do more black-iron tasks—usually delivery, collecting materials, errands. Each task pays hundreds of thousands, and sometimes a few million for bronze tasks.”
“Cash is the lowest-value currency in the disaster world.”
“Add some investments and fifty to sixty million a year isn’t hard, but because I dig tunnels and to raise my Source Energy I must borrow and use more, so the money all goes to debt repayment. I’m a ‘month-and-out’ person too...”
Wu Zhong scratched his head—good heavens, someone with an annual income of sixty million who still lives paycheck to paycheck...
Deliveries for hundreds of thousands per run? He wanted to deliver too!
Yang Chunsha sounded like someone saying, “My monthly salary is three thousand.”
He looked at Infinite Summer: “Summer Brother, do you repay like this?”
Infinite Summer replied calmly, “I don’t need to. Kun Blood is the easiest, and I have an entire swimming pool of Kun Blood.”
“Also, my void implant can absorb energy by itself. Although absorption while using it is inefficient, I’ve eaten a lot of Lightningwood and can endure 100,000 mA currents.”
“I have twelve private 1000 kV ultra-high-voltage power stations around the world. When I’m free I just charge—sleep while charging. Absorbing one kilowatt-hour takes only 0.0036 seconds.”
Wu Zhong was speechless; Yang Chunsha was shocked and envious.
Private power stations and a swimming pool of Kun Blood—these are the perks of the powerful. Whether it’s innate capacity to take high energy or a Lightningwood to boost resistance, strong people have options; weak ones like Yang Chunsha must scrimp.
Hearing that Infinite Summer can absorb a kilowatt-hour in 0.0036 seconds meant an hourly gain of eleven Bits of multiversal power.
Yang Chunsha nearly wept with envy.
Experts like this primarily use Bitcoin to raise their energy ceiling and don’t activate Multivariate Moment daily—they save quota for emergencies.
So without big events, they just recharge a bit daily and use power sparingly.
Yang Chunsha consumed so much because she cast continuously.
In fact, a single earth formation wall only costs 0.001 Bit.
“You can withstand 100,000 mA? Do you eat Lightningwood like food? Golden mercenary, how are you so wealthy?” Yang Chunsha was astonished and puzzled.
Based on her knowledge, Infinite Summer shouldn’t be that rich.
Infinite Summer said coldly, “None of your business—dig faster!”
Yang Chunsha shrank back, adjusted her glasses, and kept casting to dig.
Wu Zhong was getting dizzy—the carbon dioxide level was too high.
With the cave sealed, oxygen was steadily decreasing.
Fortunately, because the woman dug hard, they finally reached the branched Dim Passage before oxygen ran out.
Their original route had to have been off, but Yang Chunsha knew the tunnels she had dug like the back of her hand.
She easily identified their location and led them along on foot.
But soon, there was a rumble ahead—another collapse!
“Ah, again?” Yang Chunsha wailed; this area had been relatively safe.
Now because of one Night Wandering Deity making trouble, the place had become leaky and dangerous.
“Hmph!”
Infinite Summer chased with speed—and in reverse, because the Night Wandering Deity had gone to some area behind them to cause destruction.
With a roar, Infinite Summer unleashed a spray of purple ichor in a fan shape.
They saw a ghostly silhouette corroded and destroyed—half its body dissolved instantly, then the rest vanished as it darted into a rock fissure and disappeared.
Infinite Summer did not pursue; he worried about Wu Zhong and hurried back.
At the same time, Yang Chunsha had already repaired the collapse ahead and reopened the path.
But there was no doubt—they would encounter this kind of thing countless times along the way.
“We’re moving too slowly.” Infinite Summer said.
Wu Zhong inhaled deeply. “It’s not just the Night Wandering Deity. With Summer Brother here, the Night Wandering Deity can only harass us, not do significant damage.”
“But it’s been tailing us, knowing our position. If Unit 985 and the ghosts make a deal, we’re screwed.”
Wu Zhong spoke with concern—he’d seen Captain Lu negotiate with Ji Meng.
Ji Meng’s meaning had been clear: as long as Wu Zhong died, it didn’t matter how or who killed him.
Now the Night Wandering Deity’s assassination failed, and 985 wanted to capture him—those two parties might strike a deal.
“If the Night Wandering Deity reports a tip, 985 will know wherever we go,” Wu Zhong added reasonably, making Infinite Summer consider the problem seriously.
But Infinite Summer thought for a moment then shook his head. “Making deals with ghosts isn’t that simple. Ji Meng wants you dead, but 985 won’t; they’ll suspect you can seal the Celestial Gate. Once they learn that, they won’t kill you; they’ll use you to seal the Celestial Gate. What happens after sealing is unclear.”
“In short, if the ghosts tip off 985, you can’t run, but that’s not beneficial to the ghosts. It’s like inviting a tiger in to skin yourself—digging your own grave.”
“Better to let you escape now, and kill you later when the ghosts are stronger. There’s no hurry.”
Wu Zhong nodded—makes sense; ghosts aren’t stupid.
Infinite Summer continued, “But we still need to hurry. This is their home turf; staying long will invite trouble.”
Yang Chunsha pricked up her ears—she had willingly boarded Infinite Summer’s risky plan.
She had begged to be included, so now she mustn’t sap the team internally; she had to do everything she could to help everyone escape the country together.
“Um...can you teleport and get a car here?”
Infinite Summer nodded slightly but didn’t rush to go. He called out, “Gizzard, come out.”
He pulled his collar open, revealing a tattoo on his back depicting Gizzard’s gruesome death.
The tattoo then dissolved into a spectral Gizzard.
“Find the Night Wandering Deity and eliminate it.” Infinite Summer intended to remove the Night Wandering Deity first so that creature’s consciousness would roll back to the Mount Lu Celestial Gate to revive, and not stall them here.
With a whoosh, Gizzard dove into the rock wall.
Not long after, Infinite Summer jolted, tore open his collar, and bared his nape and shoulder.
Wu Zhong saw another ghost tattoo appear on him.
“Back so soon? Is the Night Wandering Deity dead?” he asked.
Infinite Summer muttered and summoned it again; the tattoo became ghostly.
But Gizzard glared and dashed off into the distance without even looking back.
“What are you doing? What’s wrong?” Infinite Summer was stunned.
Wu Zhong realized: Gizzard wanted to go find the tangle...