Chapter 27: Investors

[Ritual activated]

[Day Selection Ritual: Fear Tree (Seedling)]

[Quality: Purple]

[Day Selection Ritual Ability 1: Fear: Fruit]

[You can absorb a target's fear to condense a fruit (maximum of three at once). Consuming a fruit heals a portion of your injuries and puts you into the Fear Stance for ten minutes.

While in the Fear Stance, the mental resistance of surrounding targets drops. Your strength, speed, and stamina increase by 20%, and your resistance to the Inner World power contained within the fruit vastly improves.

Current fruits possessed: 3]

[Day Selection Ritual Ability 2: Fear Seed]

[You can absorb a target's fear to condense a seed (maximum of three at once). You can also consume your weird energy to activate a seed.

Upon activation, if the seed is near a target, it will automatically latch on and parasitize them for one minute.

If the seed is near you, its potential will be consumed, transforming it into a Fear Thorn.

Current seeds possessed: 3]

[Additional Day Selection Ritual Trait: Disguise

To safely survive its seedling stage, a Fear Tree Seedling typically disguises itself as an ordinary fruit tree.

You can disguise the quality of your Ritual, lowering it by up to half a tier.]

Yan Jing reviewed the ability descriptions on his panel again and again, feeling quite satisfied.

He didn't know how his Day Selection Ritual compared to others, but the abilities themselves—healing, damage, crowd control, and disguise—were incredibly well-rounded.

This perfectly met his immediate need to maximize his combat strength.

He held his breath and concentrated, feeling the new energy surging inside him.

The energy ebbed and flowed like a nighttime tide, rising and falling with his heartbeat. It brought a trace of coolness identical to what he had felt as the cameraman. This was the so-called weird energy.

He attempted to channel the weird energy, and a pitch-black seed wreathed in thorns materialized in his hand.

"Swish—"

Pitch-black energy rippled through the cramped room as the projection of the Sapling behind him flickered.

In an instant, the seed transformed into a spear-like thorn.

Brambles coiled around it like snakes. Clusters of withered, gaunt flowers bloomed upon its savage tip, shadows unfurling from their stamens. It looked less like a spear and more like a seamless work of art.

When Yan Jing swung it, a sharp shriek like a wail tore through the air. A smooth incision appeared in the stainless steel cup on his desk, and water slowly trickled from the cut.

The strike hadn't required much effort. It seemed that acquiring the Day Selection Ritual had also slightly improved his physical constitution.

Following the blow, Yan Jing clearly felt the thorn in his hand become noticeably more transparent.

He swung it four more times in quick succession before the thorn instantly disintegrated. It shattered into petal-like fragments that fluttered to the ground and vanished.

Five strikes. In other words, in its complete state, I can swing it fifteen times.

Yan Jing pondered this. Fifteen strikes wasn't a lot, but it wasn't a small number, either. If used properly, a single blow could be fatal.

From the looks of it, this skill placed a heavy emphasis on the user's combat technique.

Although he had practiced some self-defense martial arts in his past life, his only real combat experience so far was slaughtering everything in sight as a Lesser Wandering Ghost.

He still needed practice.

"Beep, beep! Beep, beep!"

A message popped up on his computer. It was from Xu Weizhou.

Yan Jing had messaged him before activating his Ritual, and he was finally replying.

Yan Jing thought for a moment before calling him. After confirming it really was Xu Weizhou on the other end, the two agreed to meet at a restaurant next to the Investor Tower that afternoon.

Since it was still early, Yan Jing opened the player forums and browsed for information regarding the next Dungeon, the Sun-Swallowing Tower.

Then he quickly washed up, changed clothes, hailed a car on his phone to the Investor Tower, and headed out.

The warm sunlight washed over him, making him instinctively squint.

Sunlight in the Surface World was entirely different from the Inner World's. It was warm and radiant, bathing his whole body in a cozy heat.

Ling'an City was merely a lower-middle-tier city among the many in the Fifth Ring Domain.

Much like certain cities in his past life, it constantly announced pushes for vigorous development, yet its ranking within the Fifth Ring Domain hadn't advanced a single step in years.

Looking around, the scenery resembled the first- and second-tier cities of his previous life. Skyscrapers stood in dense numbers, cars bustled along the streets, and people hurried past row after row of decorative trees without ever looking up.

But if one paid attention to the details, there were subtle differences. For example...

"Fast enough for you, kid?"

The middle-aged driver, sporting a handlebar mustache, steered with one hand. He smoothly overtook car after car, leaving them to eat his exhaust.

Honking horns rang continuously in Yan Jing's ears, like an overzealous cheerleading squad at a rally race. He nodded.

"It's definitely fast."

There had been several times just now when it seemed they were about to rear-end the vehicle in front of them, but following a ripple of weird energy, they managed to scrape by with millimeters to spare.

"Heh, my Day Selection Ritual is just my beloved car here. It isn't even a supernatural item, but the perk is that it drives exceptionally fast."

The driver gave a proud smile, clearly satisfied with his past choice.

"Then what about the Dungeons?"

Yan Jing asked a somewhat mood-killing question, but the driver didn't mind. He waved it off with a laugh.

"As long as you choose a Day Selection Ritual of really poor quality, the cycle for entering Dungeons stretches out immensely—roughly once a year. The difficulty drops quite a bit, too. I've had good luck and managed to scrape by for four or five years now."

"For people like us who only survived the Novice Dungeon by sheer luck, picking some half-baked item to gamble with in the next Dungeon would probably get us killed even faster."

He lit a cigarette and glanced at Yan Jing in the rearview mirror, only to find the young man staring intently at him with a strange look.

He chuckled.

"You young folks probably think a choice like mine is cowardly. But honestly, I was already quite old when the Dungeon selected me. My kid was already two. I just didn't have the drive anymore."

"No, I was just hoping you'd keep at least one hand on the steering wheel," Yan Jing said earnestly.

Driving with one arm resting on the window and the other holding a cigarette was simply too dangerous.

They soon arrived at their destination.

Yan Jing closed the car door, promised the driver a five-star review, and turned to look up.

Before him stood a skyscraper that would undoubtedly be a landmark in the central business districts of his previous life.

The building was nearly a hundred stories tall. Massive, expansive floor-to-ceiling windows lined the tower from top to bottom, as if deliberately showcasing the daily routines of the working elites to the people on the street.

He could faintly see attractive men and women wearing name badges chatting by the windows. They held coffees and wore smiles, their shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbow to reveal exquisite designer watches.

Their conversations never lasted long; a new batch of people generally rotated in after just a few minutes—a turnover rate far faster than celebrities in the entertainment industry.

This was a building populated entirely by investors. Every floor housed an investor joint merchant guild. For instance, the Qianjin Investment Bank mentioned by the woman named Mu Wan was one of the top five firms among them.

A good investor could save the person they backed a tremendous amount of effort.

Yan Jing roughly counted the building's floors, quickly locked onto his target level, and walked straight through the entrance.

His attire today was completely casual—a hoodie paired with jeans—which made him stand out glaringly among the people coming and going around him.

However, no one paid him any mind. Almost everyone in this building was holding a laptop, wearing a headset, and talking non-stop...

At least, that was what Yan Jing initially thought.

But the moment he stepped inside, a rapid beeping chimed from above the glass doors. To his astonishment, the laptops in everyone's hands began to go off. In the next second, numerous gazes turned to appraise him.

"Name: Yan Jing. Abandoned son of the Yan Family. Bone age: 23. Height: 181 cm. Weight: 75 kg. Weird energy fluctuation: Moderate. Recently cleared a Novice Dungeon. Measurements are..."

A pure-looking, cute woman was the first to approach, handing him a business card.

"You passed your first Dungeon? We could have a chat if you're interested. I'm willing to offer you a Class C Contract and provide a few Day Selection Ritual options..."

Yan Jing accepted the card in a daze, completely unaware this was only the beginning. Soon, more than a dozen business cards had been thrust into his hands.

Of course, even more people simply tossed his file into their recycling bins after glancing at his profile.

"This Class C Contract refers to—"

Seeing that the pure-looking woman was still standing there, Yan Jing started to ask a question.

Before he could finish, a thick stack of documents was shoved into his hands.

The pure-looking woman smiled at him.

"Take a good look. According to the specifications of a Class C Contract, our firm will provide you with a total of approximately one million in Surface World currency. This should be the highest level of funding you can receive right now."

Yan Jing stared at the document in his hands; it was at least forty or fifty pages long.

He thought it would be hard to read quickly, but after flipping through, he realized that a full twenty to thirty pages were just liability waivers.

As he browsed the document, a woman with long, wavy hair walked over. She appeared to be friends with the pure-looking woman, speaking up as soon as she approached.

"Qingqing, he's not worth a Class C Contract. Think this through carefully."

"Is that so? I think he's quite worth it. It shouldn't be a loss," the pure-looking woman replied with a smile.

She's got a good eye.

Yan Jing gave her a mental thumbs-up, nodding inwardly.

"He was already kicked out of the Yan Family a few years ago. Furthermore, a couple of weeks back, his father Yan Mu publicly declared at an important banquet that he no longer had this son."

The wavy-haired woman had clearly done much more homework than the pure-looking woman. She pulled out a few physical documents and handed them over.

"Their family situation is very complicated, and he isn't Yan Mu's only child. If you were banking on the hope that their father-son relationship could be mended, that idea is going up in smoke."

"Once he fails to return to the Yan Family, his value is bound to plummet. He has zero potential to rise."

The pure-looking woman read through the documents carefully, a hint of hesitation appearing on her face.

"...In that case, his evaluation might have to be lowered a little..."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Yan Jing. There might have been an issue with the offer just now. Right now, I can probably only provide you with a Sub-Class C Contract."

Yan Jing was just about to speak when the wavy-haired woman interrupted once more.

"He isn't even worth a Sub-Class C!"

"Qingqing, clear your head! You're only a little bit away from getting an 'Outstanding' performance rating this month. If you sign this guy, your evaluation is definitely going to drop."

The wavy-haired woman's tone bordered on severe, carrying a strong sense of frustration over her friend's poor judgment.

The woman named Qingqing looked even more torn.

"But... I really do feel like he's worth this price..."

Very professional. No wonder she's up for an Outstanding rating.

Yan Jing nodded inwardly once again.

"You just want to sleep with him, don't you?"

The wavy-haired woman let out a sigh, uttering words that made Yan Jing's eyes widen.

He immediately flipped to the back of the contract. Sure enough, on the final two pages, there were a few lines of bold, enlarged text:

[If the investee fails to meet the required conditions and is unable to repay the investment funds, the investor may require the investee to use their body or other non-financial means for repayment.]

Yan Jing lifted his head and looked at Qingqing. Directly called out by her friend, a flush of crimson crawled up her face as she whispered softly, "But I really do think he's worth the price. I'm just missing one of his type right now..."