Immortal Dao Potential, Come to Me!

Chen Zhuo wanted to take out a loan, and a substantial one at that. What was there to fear? With a cheat in hand, how could he not dare borrow to launch a venture? What a joke! Early loans were only temporary; as long as his venture succeeded, everything would turn out fine! And if it didn't succeed, well, there wouldn't be much he could do anyway. If he couldn't make it even with a cheat, he might as well take the rooftop express and jump. *Ding-dong!* A crisp chime sounded. Chen Zhuo looked down and saw a flurry of messages sent by Senior Sister Si Jing. [Still staying up late scraping spirit coins together?] [Constantly running out of spiritual energy injections?] [Our platform offers microloans backed by your spiritual bone credit rating, payable in as few as three installments! Nurturing needles, forging sinews, expanding meridians—it covers them all! Never let a lack of funds hold back your cultivation progress!] "Junior Brother Chen Zhuo, click the link below first. I've already helped you apply for a credit line of 300 spirit coins. The interest is very low, and you just need to repay it within thirty years. Basically all the newly enrolled students have taken out a loan..." Immediately after came a long voice message from Si Jing: "Junior Brother, do you want to buy some medication after taking out the loan? I can give you some recommendations! What's your major, Junior Brother? Do you want to grab a meal together this weekend?" "..." Once she learned Chen Zhuo wanted to take out a loan, Senior Sister Si Jing had clearly grown far more enthusiastic. She showered him with attentive care, even wanting to ask him out for a meal to help him map out his future cultivation path. "Junior Brother, your talent is actually quite good! Even though your spiritual root is ordinary—borderline poor, even—the fact that you reached the second layer of Qi Refining in three months is enough to prove your talent and hard work, your god-tier comprehension! As long as you're willing to work hard, your future is bright!" "The way I see it, you have a real shot at graduating early, or even becoming a Foundation Establishment cultivator!" "But if you don't take the drugs, that hope might be slim. An average Qi Refining cultivator only makes twenty or thirty a month, but a Foundation Establishment cultivator can pull in several hundred or even thousands! The difference is like night and day. If you borrow a little spirit coins now, once you become a Foundation Establishment cultivator, paying it off will be a walk in the park!" "Some juniors truly have no immortal dao potential. They're so timid they won't even borrow spirit coins—hardly cut out for cultivation..." "..." Chen Zhuo basically let Si Jing's words go in one ear and out the other. At that moment, he was busy nodding, blinking, and opening his mouth. [You have applied for a microloan: three hundred spirit coins.] [Good credit rating detected. Application approved!] Nothing more to be said. Immortal dao potential, come to me! Chen Zhuo glanced down at his spiritual communication jade slip. [You have received a loan of 300 spirit coins from 'Xiuxiutong'. Current balance: 311.32 spirit coins.] Seeing his spirit coins increase, Chen Zhuo felt utterly satisfied, feeling as if his immortal dao potential had grown once more! Wealth, companions, methods, and land—wealth came first! Without spirit coins, what kind of immortality was one supposed to cultivate?! Seeing Si Jing continuing to pitch relentlessly, Chen Zhuo politely typed a reply: "Thank you, Senior Sister. May I ask if there are other spirit coin loans available? I'd like to borrow some more." Si Jing: !!! Holy crap, she'd run into a prime cultivation seedling! Si Jing, who had just returned to her dorm, leaped right off her bed! Fortunately she wasn't tall; otherwise, she might have hit the ceiling. "Good kid, he's got the same flair I had back then!" Si Jing's bright eyes blinked and blinked. Her slender, fair fingers flew across her jade slip: "Of course there are! 'Xiuxiutong' is currently the largest spirit coin loan platform for newcomers, but besides that, there are several other microloan platforms. They usually only let you borrow several tens of spirit coins and such, but if you need them, Junior Brother, I can recommend them to you..." After sending it, a look of delight crossed Si Jing's face, and she felt quite pleased. More commission! Hell yeah! As for Chen Zhuo, Si Jing was fairly optimistic about him. This kid wasn't afraid of taking out loans at all; he truly had the style she'd had back then. When she first enrolled, Si Jing had borrowed aggressively—over two thousand spirit coins—equipping herself with all sorts of tools and items. She had made a stunning splash in her freshman year, using her outstanding marks to earn scholarships. Then she used the scholarships to pay down the loans, only to leverage new microloans right after. Cycling like this over and over, now in only her ninth year of college, she was already a prodigy who owed over seven thousand spirit coins. Yet the results were equally gratifying. Si Jing was already a cultivator at the ninth layer of Qi Refining. It was very likely that within the next eleven years, she would attempt Foundation Establishment, and then upgrade from vocational college to Taiqing University, becoming an esteemed undergraduate. Once admitted to university, this debt could be deferred yet again. The reason was simple. The Immortal Mansion followed rules. While studying at university, creditors could not pursue debt collection, even if payments were overdue. Only after one graduated from university could lenders come collecting! And if one couldn't repay the debt, that was simple too. Under the rule of the Immortal Mansion, laws were strict. No matter how much those capitalists wished to skin and flay their debtors, they still had to abide by the Immortal Mansion Decrees issued by the Mansion's Soul Formation cultivators—they couldn't chop a person up into pieces. Of course, the Immortal Mansion would never allow cultivators to default indefinitely either. Those with severe delinquencies would be banished to the front lines to participate in the Astral War. The Astral War was particularly terrifying. The Five Domains and Nine Heavens under the Immortal Mansion's rule had all been acquired through waging Astral Wars to plunder resources. The initiation of every war represented a campaign of resource pillaging. If not for this, the spiritual energy of the Immortal Mansion would have withered away long ago, cutting off heaven from earth and turning it into a mundane world. Where would immortal cultivators come from then? Everyone might as well just be mortals together in an Age of Dharma Decline. As for Chen Zhuo... Si Jing wore an expression of pity. Although this junior brother was constantly increasing his immortal dao potential, he was unfortunately a step behind from the very start. No matter how much he raised his immortal dao potential, it was all an exercise in futility! The reason was simple. A single, inferior low-grade spiritual root had already locked him into a dead end. In Si Jing's eyes, what Chen Zhuo should really do was figure out a way to round up tens of thousands in immortal dao potential and replace his spiritual root first. What room for growth did an inferior low-grade single spiritual root even have? Not to mention Chen Zhuo hailed from the "mortal class." According to regulations, students from such mortal classes couldn't attend in-person classes or even have dorm rooms on campus; they could only take online courses from home. After graduating twenty years later, if lucky, they might reach the fourth layer of Qi Refining. If unlucky, they'd probably be stuck at the third layer of Qi Refining. Just in time to work on the assembly lines of Taiqing Pharmaceuticals. However... Si Jing glanced at Chen Zhuo's major. Elixir Appraisal and Grading. "Mmm." Si Jing let out a long sigh, pressed her palms together, and silently typed a 1 to send Chen Zhuo a prayer. This major was colloquially known as Waste Elixir Appraisal. Its main responsibility was writing appraisal reports for the pills concocted by senior students in their fifteenth year or higher. Naturally, it was also a lucrative major. After all, every time someone ingested those pills, there was a very high probability of disability. Hence, the senior students would always pay good money to hire them to test the pills. Who knows, maybe Junior Brother Chen Zhuo really could repay all this borrowed immortal dao potential... After letting her thoughts wander for a moment, Si Jing went back to putting on a cutesy voice and said playfully to Chen Zhuo, "Junior Brother, care to learn about our campus drugs? These are all..." Whether Chen Zhuo could repay the loans was none of her damn business. Pocketing her commission came first.