I looked at the tiny wooden horse more closely. It didn’t look special in any way, just a simply carved wooden horse. But did it secretly hold something inside of it?

"What is this horse? Is it a treasure or is there something inside of it?"

"ANALYZING…" the text said, and a tiny bar came up showing the progress of the scan. It seemed to jump to random percentages as it grew which seemed like a bad design if you asked me. It continued growing as I waited, and I wondered why it was taking so long so I just asked it.

"Why is the analysis taking so long?"

The analysis bar abruptly stopped moving and disappeared.

"ANSWER: Due to the user’s low cultivation, processing power is at an all-time low. Due to this, the speed of any of my functions will be much slower. ANALYZING…"

Then it went right back to analyzing, though it seemed it had to start over from the beginning now. I waited for what felt like hours but was actually only a few minutes probably before I saw rather than heard a ding as the analysis finished.

"*DING* ANALYSIS COMPLETE: Item is a wooden horse." it read.

I threw the wooden horse across the room in anger. It wasn’t my… most dignified moment, but I waited all that time in anticipation just to be let down!

I walked over to the poor remains of the wooden horse and looked around through the wreckage. I didn’t immediately see anything of note, but I again used my qi sensing eyes and looked around at the various pieces. Hiding underneath one of the pieces of the wooden horse was an object. I picked it up and examined it.

"EXAMINING…" Again a loading bar showed up on my screen and I flung myself back onto the bed in frustration. I waited for the progress bar to slowly climb up to one hundred percent before again a ding showed up in text in my vision.

"*DING* EXAMINATION COMPLETE: Item is a lesser grade wind qi absorption ring. It assists the user in absorbing sources of wind qi into their dantian."

I put the ring on but didn’t feel any difference.

"I don’t feel any difference?" I asked the seemingly all-knowing text.

"ANSWER: Putting on the ring itself is not sufficient. Its effects will be felt when cultivating."

I blushed at its answer, of course I needed to start cultivating for it to work. I crossed my legs on the bed and steeled my mind. I focused on my dantian first, like I had been taught by my parents before their deaths. I felt the roiling maelstrom of energies inside of me rage against my control.

I began reaching out to the energies surrounding me all around. The density of heavenly energy on Setria 9 was lower than other areas in the universe, I knew, but I still felt energies all around me swirling. Fire, earth, and metal were the most present with wind, water, and wood being the least present elements.

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Despite wind not being as present as the other elements, as I pulled them in I felt the amount of wind qi flowing into my dantian increased. In fact, all of the elements I was absorbing were being absorbed much more quickly than before. I felt my cultivation break through to the next level almost immediately. I must have been on the cusp of a breakthrough before all of this inheritance business started.

My spirit, now in the middle of qi condensation I suppose, made me feel undeniably stronger. My body felt refreshed, if a little sweaty. I had to take another shower but when I got out I asked another question to the mysterious text.

"So, is this treasure enough to combine some cultivation methods together?"

"ANSWER: No. More treasures are required to combine any cultivation methods together." It said plaintively.

My mood dropped but I got an idea. I bought that horse on a whim from the market, I wonder if I could find any more treasures hidden for cheap! I realized I didn’t have any money to buy things, but I knew I could use my new eyes to make some money in the asteroids.

I put on my hab-suit and made my way up the catwalks to the airlock to the outside closest to the sector I lived in, sector E.

"Going back out to mine Astra?' Missus Jens said as I passed her adorably decorated abode. She had all kinds of plush collected and populating the outside of the doorway marking her house clearly in the world of metal pipes, walls, and doors.

"Sure am Missus Jens!" I told her, a pep in my step. She waved as I lost sight of here on my trip to the airlock.

I made my way to the airlock and passed the lazy guard manning it. He was mostly there to collect a tax on whatever was brought in but his daunting middle stage of the foundation building realm made him way out of my league in a fight. Not that I needed to be a wanted woman at this point in my life. I decided I was going to lay as low as possible going forward and cultivate simply.

I flew through the asteroid fields closest to Setria first examining each one closely. It took a full hour of searching to find one giving off a fair amount of qi, but I did manage to find one.

A medium sized asteroid in the field shone like a star in the night sky, my eyes turned to money signs and I rushed over to it to mine it.

I broke it apart with my hand drill and revealed myriad small nodes of precious gems. I squealed with delight and marveled at the new fortune I discovered. I quickly mined all of the gems and made my merry way back to Setria 9. This would last me a few months, even with the tax by the government.

I walked through the airlock and the look on my face must have given me away because the guard stepped in front of me.

"Anything to declare Astra?" He asked me in a no-nonsense tone.

"Yes, Tort, here’s what I found." I showed him my haul and he looked shocked I had managed to find so much in such a short time.

"Tax is going to be thirty percent on all this." He told me.

"Thirty percent?!" I asked incredulously.

"It’s always been fifteen percent, why is it thirty percent now?"

He licked his lips in a weird way at me.

"You could always figure out other ways to pay the tax, but it's gone up to thirty percent now. The number of people mining has gone down so we need to up the tax to compensate."

That explanation didn’t make much sense to me, but the look in his eyes sent shivers down my spine. I gave him thirty percent of my haul and stalked off, fuming. Instead of going straight home I took the walk over to the market district. It, much like the rest of the districts in sector E had a mechanical vibe going for it. Lots of pipes, gears, machines and whirring sounds made the city seem lively, even in the less populated sections. I made sure to hide my pack of gems as I walked to the best merchant I knew, ‘ol Smelly himself had to give me a good deal for all these gems.