X-Dragon Era

Admiration shook his head. Although it was only bronze, one must not forget that the price of bronze was set to rise. Now one silver could exchange for one thousand coppers, but in a few days, it could only exchange for 100 coppers. With the price of copper skyrocketing, imagine how much money this warehouse would yield!

Gazing at the warehouse full of bronze ingots, Xin Yun's mouth watered with greed. However, before moving anything, he had to first ensure there was no one in the warehouse. Otherwise, if he got discovered halfway through the heist, it would all be over.

Moving carefully among the stacks of bronze ingots, and after spending an hour's time, Xin Yun finally surveyed the entire warehouse. The vast space was deserted, not a soul in sight, not even a ghostly shadow. Clearly... this was just a storage place, one for long-term items.
Experience exclusive tales on My Virtual Library Empire

To be extra cautious, Xin Yun even went to the front door to take a look. Seeing the thick layer of dust there, he estimated that no one had been there for at least a year. These bronze ingots were clearly accumulated by a major clan and were not easily sold off.

Now that he was certain of the warehouse's safety, Xin Yun didn't hold back. Opening his mouth, a point of black light emerged and grew rapidly in the wind. When it landed, it had transformed into a huge cauldron with an open mouth, around which chaotic streams of air swirled, generating a powerful suction force.

The massive bronze ingots—over two meters in length, more than a meter wide, and half a meter thick—silently flew up and successively plunged into the vast mouth of the cauldron, vanishing from sight.

All along his path, the bronze ingots rose neatly in line and entered the mouth of the cauldron. In just over an hour, about one hundred thousand bronze ingots from the grand warehouse had all entered the Chaos Cauldron, leaving the space abruptly empty.

"Heh heh..." Ecstatic at the sight of the empty warehouse, Xin Yun didn't dare linger. He quickly ran to the tunnel he had used to infiltrate the place and returned the same way he came, quietly slipping into the water. With Yinglong's assistance, he rapidly left the Smelting Yard.

Everything was very calm until Xin Yun returned to the inn. Nothing had happened; this wasn't a matter of luck but rather because for thousands of years, no one had ever stolen from this place, so there was indeed a lapse in vigilance.

Don't underestimate that warehouse full of bronze, roughly one hundred thousand yuan, weighing over a million tons. It was more than enough to restore the most basic functions of the various parts of the Sky-opening Axe.

However, bronze alone was not enough. One also needed gold, silver, iron, and tin—each metal needed in amounts of one million tons to begin restoration. If even one type was missing, the process could not start.

After returning to the inn, Xin Yun changed out of his dirty clothes and took a thoroughly satisfying bath before dressing in new garments to meet Yi Luo Xiang and Yan Qingying.

The two girls had missed Xin Yun greatly during his absence, especially towards the end when they were too distracted to focus on cultivation. Fortunately, Xin Yun returned in time, so not much was delayed.

Putting aside the joy of their reunion, the next morning Xin Yun went out to scout around. Sure enough... just as he remembered, the value of silver began to depreciate sharply, exactly as in his previous life's memory.

Since the economic storm had begun, Xin Yun naturally set into motion. He traveled back the way he came, stopping at each city to use his promissory notes and after paying off interest and principal, reclaimed his own gold ingots.

Though many envied Xin Yun's luck, similar loans were common in every Money Shop, and Xin Yun's loans were spread across more than a hundred of them, so they did not draw much attention.

After retrieving the gold, Xin Yun transported it to a hidden location and then transferred it into the Chaos Cauldron. He then continued on towards the next city, reaping the fruits of his victory.

Finally, after a year's time, Xin Yun paid off all his loans and reclaimed all of his gold ingots—2 million Gold Ingots in total, weighing 123 tons! Indeed, it was even more than the weight of the bronze, showing just how tremendous Xin Yun's gains had been over the past two years.

It's worth mentioning that during this year, Xin Yun repeatedly visited several major mines. Through theft, he managed to acquire 100 tons of iron and tin. These weren't valuable materials, so security was lax.

After depositing one hundred tons of gold into the Chaos Cauldron, Xin Yun took one ton from the remaining twenty-three tons of gold and exchanged it for one hundred tons of silver, also transferring it into the Cauldron. By then, all the materials needed to restore the basic functions of the fragments of the Sky-opening Axe were gathered. What followed was the refining process.

The Axe Soul would handle all specifics automatically, with no intervention from Xin Yun needed, nor was he capable of it.

After completing the exchange, Xin Yun was left with twenty-two tons of gold. After exchanging it, he got 440 billion Gold Coins, multiplying his fortune by over two hundred times!

Xin Yun started with two hundred million Gold Coins. After the economic storm, he was able to make nearly ten times that profit in each Money Shop. After deducting the principal and interest, the net profit amounted to seventeen or eighteen billion.

Moreover, Xin Yun didn't just take out loans from one Money Shop—he took them from over a hundred. Like a cycle of hens laying eggs and eggs hatching hens, his profits expanded over a hundred times more.

Once all the principal and interest were paid back, Xin Yun's total balance effectively reached 2,460 billion, of which 2,000 billion were used to restore the Sky-opening Axe, 20 billion to exchange for silver, leaving him with about 440 billion in assets.