Enlightenment: Attaining the Dao at Age 8

Chapter 149: Chapter 115: Forum in an Uproar

What did this mean?

It meant that Li Chang’an’s gains from each reincarnation were absurd!

Otherwise, there was no way Li Chang’an’s aura could have become so profound in such a short time just by cultivating with luxury items like Martial Arts Energy Cores.

…

If word of such rapid growth got out…

The buzz it would generate in Reincarnator circles would likely be no less than when Li Chang’an had uploaded versions 1.0 and 2.0 of the Basic Martial Arts Truth.

But Hu Xiuyuan was obviously not foolish enough to shoot himself in the foot.

Thus, he chose to turn a blind eye, pretending he hadn’t seen a thing. He found himself growing ever more curious and hopeful about just how far Li Chang’an could go on his path of reincarnation.

…

After seeing off three big shots in a row, Li Chang’an finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Although he was annoyed by the Gu Family and other outsiders who liked to interrupt him while he was trying to lay low and power up, Li Chang’an knew it was unavoidable.

After all, the world has always been fair.

Since Li Chang’an enjoyed the benefits of rapid growth and various privileges, he also had to bear the drawbacks that came with it.

Arousing the curiosity and probing of the major Reincarnator Families was likely just the beginning.

If he continued to display this same momentum of rapid development, he might even come into conflict with certain families.

The Human Federation and the Human Community of Shared Future represented the prevailing order in the world today.

But beneath this prevailing order, as long as personal interests were involved, friction between people was inevitable.

To take the simplest example, after Li Chang’an took over the territory of Cangxuan City, he would have to run some kind of profitable business if he wanted to make more money.

Otherwise, with a population of hundreds of thousands limited to producing and consuming goods internally within Cangxuan City, Li Chang’an would be just like any other Reincarnator City Lord, only able to collect a bit of tax from the commoners each year.

But that little bit of tax money would only amount to a million or so Rebirth Points a year at most—less than what he could earn from a few reincarnations.

Li Chang’an looked down on such a paltry sum.

If that were the case, this territory wouldn’t be very meaningful to him.

Naturally, Li Chang’an couldn’t allow that to happen.

He could either not waste any energy managing the territory at all. But since he had decided to manage it and had already invested significant effort, the return had to match the time and energy he poured into it.

Otherwise, Li Chang’an would never engage in a losing business.

And since he was going to run a business, he couldn’t just limit it to Cangxuan City. He would have to sell his products externally to earn greater profits.

So, coming full circle, the moment selling things externally was involved, interests would clash and conflicts would arise.

Although the actual area under Huaxia’s control expanded or shrank each year depending on the scale of the Exotic Beast Tides, the overall population and number of cities remained relatively stable.

This was an already saturated, zero-sum market.

Every extra bite your products took was a bite taken away from a competitor.

Every extra sip of soup they claimed was a sip a competitor lost.

If the competition grew fierce, mutual conflicts could instantly escalate, turning into a cutthroat war in the business world.

Although the Reincarnator Association strictly forbade Reincarnators from killing each other and had very strict restrictions, if overt actions were off the table, wasn’t it easy to play dirty in the shadows?

Once someone had the idea, there were many ways to achieve the same goal.

In other words, if Li Chang’an had any intention of exporting products from his territory, he would inevitably come into conflict with the Reincarnator Families that dominated large shares of the market.

So, the question was, did Li Chang’an have this intention?

Of course he did!

And not only did Li Chang’an have the intention, he was also preparing to take real action.

The Kyoto Gu Family had caused trouble for him time and again.

First, it was the arrogant Gu Ruilong. Simply because he wasn’t willing to go to Kyoto or join that so-called Gu Family, Gu Ruilong had brazenly threatened him.

Now, Gu Yizhi, one of the six vice-chairmen of the Huaxia Reincarnator Association, had come to recruit him, using the same old carrot-and-stick rhetoric. When he refused to comply, Gu Yizhi had resorted to sinister threats and despicable tactics.

’Truly, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!’

Unfortunately, Li Chang’an wasn’t strong enough to retaliate directly yet. Therefore, he planned to teach the Gu Family a little lesson through a good old-fashioned trade war.

He would let them know that Li Chang’an wasn’t someone they could push around as they pleased.

With this in mind, Li Chang’an finally snapped back to reality. He opened his Rebirth Mark, entered the Reincarnator forum, and prepared to purchase a batch of raw materials for assembling military-grade weapons.

He had spent so many years researching in Night City.

And he hadn’t just been researching Genetic Potions.

He had also dabbled in all sorts of high-tech military and civilian weaponry.

The key was, because he possessed the Heaven-defying Comprehension talent, Li Chang’an could not only learn trivial knowledge so complex it was mind-numbing to even look at…

…but he could also categorize and summarize this knowledge at a higher level.

As a result, he could quickly improve upon the original designs of these technological weapons, making them better than before.

It was for this very reason…

…that Li Chang’an was able to take Night City, which had originally only produced junk weapons, and fulfill his promise to lead it out of poverty and toward prosperity in just a few short years.