Chapter 156
“Lu Chuan, could you tell that Executor friend of yours that if he wants to come see you, at least give us a heads-up so we can leave first? Instead of knocking us out cold every time?” Shen Li pointed to the faint scratch on his forehead, milking it for effect. “Look at me, I fainted without warning and even bashed my forehead.”
They all knew Lu Chuan had an Executor friend—and not a low-ranking one either.
“That’s to protect your sanity value!” Lu Chuan retorted. “If you saw him head-on, your already shaky sanity would plummet instantly. He was doing you a favor. If you fainted in an awkward way, that’s on you, not him.”
“Lu Chuan, whose side are you on?” Shen Li was shocked. “How many benefits did he give you? You’re defending him so fiercely you won’t even play mediator?”
By Lu Chuan’s usual style, he should’ve smoothed things over casually. But now he wasn’t even pretending.
“A lot. So much that even if he wanted me to offer myself up, I don’t think I’d refuse.” Lu Chuan grinned brightly. “Brother Shen, call Sasha and Edith too. I’ve invited Cynthia and Messiah as well. Tonight, dinner’s on me—order anything you want, hahaha.”
Shen Li was convinced—Lu Chuan must’ve hit some enormous jackpot, otherwise he wouldn’t be this generous.
If Lu Chuan was treating, and saying “order whatever you want,” then even teammates lying in coffins would have to crawl out for it.
Lilus grabbed the menu first, ordering the priciest dishes in the fancy restaurant, plus limited-edition wines. Lu Chuan didn’t so much as frown.
“Sis, do you think Lu Chuan’s sanity value shot up again?” Lilus whispered loudly. “Feels like a Hongmen banquet to me. Is he bankrupt and lost his mind? I’m ordering outrageously expensive stuff and he’s still smiling.”
“Maybe we should test him.” Cynthia said seriously.
“Lu Chuan, you’re not planning to sell us after dinner, right?” Messiah asked nervously. “If you don’t explain, I won’t be able to eat a bite.”
“…Yeah, I feel like this might be my last meal in life.” Xingchen Sasha didn’t even dare touch the menu. She pinched herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lu Chuan smirked. “Looking down on me? It’s nothing big—I just got the golden dragon’s dungeon world. There’s a whole world of gold mines waiting for me. Oh right, Brother Shen, with your [Creation] ability, could you help me build a golden skyscraper?”
Shen Li almost choked on his drink. “A skyscraper made of gold? But gold is soft, it’s not structurally sound.”
“That’s fine, we can use alloys.” Lu Chuan smiled. “And once it’s built, it’ll exist as my territory. With dungeon rules in place, even if it’s just a straw hut, my territory would still be indestructible.”
He added with mock helplessness, “Actually, I was planning to build a few rooms at the top and leave one for each of you. You could stay there whenever you wanted. But let’s be clear—usage rights are yours, ownership is mine.”
He was showing off. Absolutely showing off.
The others caught on quickly. Seeing Lu Chuan’s smug grin, how could they not know?
He’d struck it rich—filthy rich—and was over the moon about it. That was why he suddenly turned so generous.
After all, if no one knew you got rich, the thrill would fade fast.
Shen Li was speechless.
“Damn, the golden dragon—that’s supposed to be a legend, isn’t it?” Lilus was stunned. “Players don’t usually care much about money, but this is on another level.”
“I want to turn the Golden Skyscraper into an auction house.” Lu Chuan said with a squinty smile, sticking to his topic. “The five major Guilds don’t trade well with each other. Each has different dungeon specialties, and players like us with balanced skills are rare. So a lot of players must be holding items they haven’t handed over to their guilds, but also can’t sell for a good price.”
His idea was simple.
He always wanted to connect the economies of the five big guilds. All players were human, and with the Evil World Game as their common enemy, they should’ve been united. But instead, they were split into five blocs, each ruling its own turf. Beyond that, there were countless small and medium guilds, fragmenting humanity into pieces and constantly fighting.
Lu Chuan knew uniting them all wasn’t easy. But before unity, at least commerce could be connected—fostering familiarity and creating more jobs for ordinary people. The world might be rotten, but they could still try to make it a little better.
So starting with commerce was definitely a good path.
Messiah and Cynthia had strong influence within their guilds. If they vouched for him, attracting players wouldn’t be a problem.
“You’re thinking of circulating powerful items?” Cynthia thought it through and understood. “But in fact, the black markets already have auctions. Whether items are legitimate or shady, they can still be sold. Your Golden Skyscraper is in a dungeon world—linking that with the real world would be troublesome. Players might not choose your auction.”
“Exactly.” Messiah added, “And most players dislike dungeon worlds. Since the number of dungeon keys is limited, if foot traffic isn’t high, it won’t matter much.”
“An auction profits from the rich, it’s all about scarcity.” Lu Chuan explained patiently. “Yes, dungeon worlds are more closed, but that also proves their safety. Many people fear their auction dealings being exposed and attracting killers—but my Golden Skyscraper would be my domain. As long as I set the rule of no killing, safety would reach unprecedented levels. As for why players would have to choose my auction… hehe, I plan to invite dungeon-world NPCs as guests.”
Everyone gave him strange looks at that.
“What do you mean, you’re going to have NPCs sell things there too?” Shen Li asked, confused.
“Exactly.” Lu Chuan said casually. “Since there are predatory lending companies in dungeon worlds, it proves that many high-level NPCs have needs. Plus, aren’t there plenty of Master-Rank players living there now? Some were once on the Master Ranking but chose to give up their status and settle in dungeon worlds. Who knows how long they’ve lived, but the treasures in their hands must surpass our imagination.”
Lu Chuan always felt it was a pity.
Those once master-ranked players who abandoned their titles to stay in dungeon worlds never left their items behind.
And players who died accidentally in-game? Their legacies almost never remained—either reclaimed by the system or looted by NPCs.
What a waste!
The real world was already a blue ocean, and the instance-world market was an even greater blank slate. Lu Chuan knew that market was just waiting for him to develop it!
“In the real world, even the S-class items kept at the bottom of the chests by our five big guilds aren’t many, and most are in the hands of master-rank players. Right now, the only way to get S-class gear is to clear instances — but some instances are shut down for all kinds of reasons, and some items can never be obtained again.
Yet those items haven’t disappeared, they’re still sitting with their former owners.”
Lu Chuan clenched his fists. “Think about it carefully: once my auction succeeds, all the NPCs will know there’s such a place, and those former top players will show up too, selling things they don’t need. Will finding the Guildmasters still be hard?”
Each generation of a guild’s guildmaster, later in their career, either became trapped inside the Infinite World or gave up being a player and stayed there. Either way, the guild had to spend enormous time and effort searching for them.
Everyone fell silent in thought.
Crude words, but the reasoning was solid.
If Lu Chuan could pull this off, creating an auction house linking the real world and the Infinite World, it would undoubtedly become the center of attention.
And the auction would be held inside the Golden Tower — Lu Chuan’s own territory — where, as lord, he could know everything that happened inside.
“There’s still one problem.” Cynthia looked at him.
“If you want to gather intel, you’ll rely on your lord powers. But if the crowd gets too big, you can’t keep your mind fixed on collecting data all the time. You’ll never process that much information — what about your sanity stat?”
“I have a solution, don’t worry,” Lu Chuan replied.
#888 proudly raised its head.
Yes, the host was talking about it.
He’d already told it: once the Golden Tower was complete, #888 would be the grand steward, filtering every scrap of data inside and passing only the useful parts to Lu Chuan.
A massive, tedious job — no one but #888 could do it.
It felt its importance rise yet again.
Cynthia studied Lu Chuan. “If you really can handle that, I have no objections. Whatever you want to do, I’ll support you.”
“Since sis said so, let’s follow her lead.”
“I’m in too,” Messiah nodded.
Shen Li and the others, of course, couldn’t deny Lu Chuan’s plan.
“Oh, right.” Lu Chuan remembered something. “Do any of you know people in the Abyss Guild or the Ocean Heart Guild?”
