The journey to Ironwood City was a three-day affair by carriage, a tedious crawl through winding forests and across sun-baked plains. For the average inhabitant of this world, it was a time of boredom and vigilance against bandits. For me, it was a mobile laboratory, a classroom, and a conditioning chamber.
Our carriage was a custom piece from the Lu Clan's stables, opulent and large, drawn by two powerful, horned steeds called Rock-Horned Coursers. Inside, plush cushions and silk curtains offered a veneer of comfort, but the atmosphere was thick with a carefully cultivated tension. I sat on one side, Mengue knelt at my feet, and Chixi sat opposite, her back ramrod straight, her eyes sharp and observant, a silent jailer in a maid's uniform.
Mengue was a case study in psychological conditioning. I had made it clear that her role as my personal maid was absolute. This meant she peeled the fruit I ate, poured the wine I drank, and massaged my shoulders when I feigned fatigue. When we stopped at inns for the night, she slept on a cot at the foot of my bed. I did not touch her sexually during this time. The goal was not satiation; it was normalization. I was weaving my presence, my commands, into the very fabric of her existence. Sex was a reward, a tool, not a constant. Her world was to shrink until it contained only one reference point: me.
Her fear was slowly being replaced by a nervous, eager-to-please compliance. The monster who had killed a famed genius was also the master who provided her with food, safety, and a strange, undeniable purpose. Her conflict was a fire I carefully stoked.
Chixi was the real challenge. She was a Golden Core cultivator, leagues above my current First Stage Qi Crystallization Realm. Physically, she could snap my neck with a thought. But I wasn't competing on a physical level. I was competing on an intellectual one. She was a product of this world: powerful, disciplined, and utterly conventional in her thinking. She saw the world in terms of Qi, realms, and clan loyalty. I saw it in terms of systems, leverage, and human fallibility.
On the second day, I unrolled the scroll Lu Ren had given me, along with a crude map of the northern territories I had procured from the clan's library. Chixi watched me, her expression a mixture of duty and disdain.
"You seem confident, for a man walking into a tiger's den," she commented, her first unsolicited words of the trip. "The Zhao family has ruled Ironwood City for two hundred years. The Matriarch, Zhao Lihua, is known as the Iron Widow for a reason. She devoured her husband's rivals after his death and has held the family together with an iron will. You think you can walk in and demand a discount?"
I didn't look up from the map. "Demand? No. That's a tactic for thugs and fools, like my dear 'father' Lu Tao. I'm not going there to demand anything. I'm going there to make her offer me the discount, along with a formal apology for her family's previous greed."
Chixi scoffed, a soft, derisive sound. "Your arrogance is boundless. On what do you base such a fantasy?"
I finally looked at her, tapping a finger on the scroll. "On this. And on a few basic principles that people in this world seem to have forgotten, or perhaps never learned." I turned to Mengue, who was carefully arranging a plate of cut melon. "Mengue, what is the most valuable thing in the world?"
She looked up, startled by the question. "Um… powerful cultivation techniques, Master? Or rare spirit herbs?"
"A common answer," I nodded. "Chixi, what do you think?"
Chixi's eyes narrowed. She was suspicious of this game. "Power. The strength to take what you want and protect what you have."
"Also a good answer," I conceded. "But you're both wrong. The most valuable thing in this world, or any world, is information." I held up the scroll. "This scroll says the Zhao family claims their Ironwood Ore supply is low due to 'unforeseen blight' and 'difficult mining conditions'. This is the information they have presented to the world."
I then pointed to the map. "This map shows the location of the Zhao family's five known Ironwood groves. They are all clustered in this mountain range here." I leaned back, a smirk playing on my lips. "The system, my secret weapon, has already told me they have a hidden Earth Spirit Vein. But let's pretend I don't know that. How would a man from my old world approach this?"
I began to talk, partly to organize my own thoughts and partly to demonstrate the alien nature of my logic to Chixi. "First, we question the premise. A blight affecting all five groves simultaneously, groves which are miles apart? Possible, but unlikely. It suggests a single point of failure, or a lie. 'Difficult mining conditions'? Ore doesn't grow on trees; it's in the ground. What would make it more difficult? Collapses? Flooding? A monster infestation? If so, there would be reports. Mercenary guilds would have postings for clearing monsters or reinforcing tunnels. There are none."
Chixi was silent now, her disdain replaced by a flicker of grudging curiosity.
"Second, we analyze the motive," I continued, warming to my subject. "They want a higher price. This isn't about supply; it's about profit. They are creating artificial scarcity. It's a classic economic monopoly. They are the sole supplier, so they control the price. But a monopoly is only effective if the scarcity is believable. Their story is flimsy. Why? Because they're arrogant. They've been in power for so long, they don't think anyone would bother to call their bluff."
"So, you intend to call their bluff?" Chixi asked. "They will simply deny it. It is your word against theirs. As a Golden Core expert, the Iron Widow's word carries more weight than yours."
"Ah, but I'm not going to use my word," I said, my smile widening. "I'm going to use objective, verifiable truth. On Earth, we have a science called geology. It's the study of the earth, of rocks and minerals. We know that certain types of ore, like Ironwood, only form under specific conditions—pressure, temperature, the presence of other minerals. They don't just appear randomly."
I drew a circle on the map encompassing all five groves. "If I were a geologist, I'd hypothesize that the entire mountain range is a single, massive Ironwood deposit, and these five 'groves' are just the surface outcroppings they've found so far. The idea that they are running out is, from a scientific perspective, ludicrous. They're sitting on a mountain of the stuff. The Earth Spirit Vein my system told me about is the cause, the geological anomaly that makes it all possible."
Mengue was looking at me with wide, adoring eyes, completely lost but utterly captivated. Chixi's expression was one of intense concentration. She was trying to find a flaw in my logic and failing.
"When we get to Ironwood City," I concluded, "we are not going to the Zhao estate. Not at first. We are going to hire some down-on-their-luck miners. We are going to buy the best soil and rock testing equipment money can buy. And then, we are going to go prospecting on the public land around the Zhao family's mountain. I'm going to apply basic geological survey principles, and I am going to find a new, untapped deposit of Ironwood Ore. I will prove, with physical evidence, that the mountain is rich with it."
The plan clicked into place in Chixi's mind. Her eyes widened in understanding. "You'll break their monopoly."
"Break it?" I laughed. "No, no. That's too simple. If I just find a new source, the Lu Clan can mine it, but it will take time and resources. I don't want to break their monopoly. I want to steal it. Once I have irrefutable proof of a new deposit, I will make that information public. I will lease the prospecting rights to every poor miner and small clan in Ironwood City for a pittance. The market will be flooded. The price of Ironwood Ore will crash. The Zhao family's entire fortune, built on artificial scarcity, will be worthless in a week. They'll face ruin."
I leaned forward, my voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "And then, when they are on their knees, when their name is mud and their coffers are empty, I will walk into their estate. And I will offer to buy their groves, their mines, their entire operation... for a thirty percent discount on their current asking price for a single shipment. I will save them from ruin, and in return, they will hand me the keys to their kingdom. The Iron Widow will have no choice but to accept."
There was a long, stunned silence in the carriage. Mengue looked at me as if I were a god. Chixi… Chixi looked at me with a newfound, profound sense of fear. It wasn't the fear of a subordinate for a powerful master. It was the fear of a soldier who has just realized the man next to him is not fighting with a sword, but with a weapon she cannot even comprehend. It was the fear of the unknown.
'Not bad, kid,' the Author's voice echoed, tinged with something that sounded almost like approval. 'Not bad at all. Using capitalism to destroy a feudal monopoly. It's so deliciously unfair. The Iron Widow is about to get a crash course in market economics. Class is in session, and the tuition is going to be a bitch.'
The rest of the journey was quiet. Chixi did not speak another word to me, but she watched me constantly, her mind clearly re-evaluating everything she thought she knew about me, and about power.
Ironwood City was a place built on a single industry. The buildings were sturdy, constructed with dark, petrified wood, and the air smelled of metal and coal smoke from the hundreds of forges that dotted the city. The people were tough, grim-faced miners and merchants, and the sigil of the Zhao family—a stylized, leafy tree with a sword for a trunk—was everywhere.
We took rooms at the city's finest inn, under a false name. I gave Mengue and Chixi their instructions. Mengue, using her unassuming, beautiful widow persona, was to visit the local tea houses and gossip circles, gathering information on the mood of the city and any rumors about the Zhao family's difficulties. Chixi, using her superior cultivation, was to covertly observe the traffic in and out of the Zhao family's properties, noting the frequency and size of shipments.
Meanwhile, I went to the grimiest part of town: the Miner's Gulch. It was a collection of taverns and flophouses where out-of-work miners drank away their meager savings. They were perfect. Unemployed, desperate, and angry at the Zhao family for the supposed 'blight' that had cost them their jobs.
I walked into the largest tavern, "The Gilded Pickaxe," and instantly became the center of attention. My fine clothes and clean appearance were a stark contrast to the grime and despair around me.
"A round of the best ale for everyone!" I announced, tossing a heavy bag of gold coins onto the bar. "And a bonus for any man who can tell me about the mountains."
Greed and curiosity overcame their suspicion. Soon, I was surrounded by grizzled, hopeful men. I didn't ask about the Zhao family directly. I used my modern knowledge to ask different questions.
"I'm a scholar," I lied smoothly, "studying geological formations. Tell me, have you ever seen reddish-streaked quartz near the Ironwood deposits? Or a soft, chalky white rock that crumbles easily?"
They looked at me like I was mad, but the gold was a powerful motivator. They told me stories, not of blights, but of the Zhao foremen warning them away from certain areas, of tunnels being sealed off not because they were empty, but because they were 'unstable'. They described the very indicator minerals I knew from my Earth-based geology textbooks would be present near a massive, super-rich ore vein created by a spiritual energy source.
I hired a dozen of the most experienced men on the spot, paying them five times the normal rate. Their task was simple: to lead me into the public mountains tomorrow at dawn, armed with the best equipment I could buy, and to dig where I told them to dig.
That evening, my team reassembled in our suite. Chixi reported that, for a family with a 'supply shortage', the Zhaos were still sending out heavily guarded, albeit smaller, caravans of refined ore under the cover of night, likely to fulfill a secret contract with a buyer willing to pay the inflated price. Mengue, with her gentle charm, had learned that the city was simmering with resentment. The Zhaos had laid off hundreds of workers, and families were beginning to starve. The Iron Widow was becoming a figure of hate, not respect.
Everything was in place. The data was collected, the tools procured, the manpower hired. The opponent was arrogant and her strategy was flawed.
"Tomorrow," I said to my two female companions, "we begin."
Chixi simply nodded, her expression grim. She understood the devastation my plan would unleash.
Mengue, however, looked at me with a burning intensity. She came to me after Chixi had retired to her own room, and knelt before me, taking my hand and pressing it to her cheek.
"Master," she whispered, her voice trembling with emotion. "You are… incredible. You see the world in a way no one else does. You command it."
I looked down at this beautiful woman, a woman who had offered her body to a fat pig to save her daughter, now looking at me with genuine, unfeigned worship. It wasn't just lust or fear anymore. It was awe.
I pulled her up, into my lap. "I am simply using the tools I have, Mengue. And you are one of my finest tools."
I kissed her, and this time, there was no resistance, no hesitation. There was only the fervent, passionate surrender of a woman who had finally found a power worthy of her submission. She was mine, completely.
And tomorrow, I would begin the hunt for my next queen.