“Vremya,” Azalea said. “Defeating people who want to bar our path is part of being domineering, right?”

“Obviously.” Grandpa Vremya grunted. He was staring at his screen while the mouse and keyboard clicked and clacked by themselves thanks to his spiritual energy. He was playing a popular online game, one that involved working with four other players to destroy the base of five opponents through three different routes. However, instead of working with four other people, he was operating all five controllable characters at once.

“The sect has a problem, and it involves dealing with people who want to oppress us,” Azalea said, glancing down at the report she had just received. It was sent via computer and ended up displayed on her bracelet. “The titan flesh was a popular product, but some kind of food and drug administration outlawed it. They claim it’s a steroid and that the health effects are uncertain. Miss Emily hopes you’ll convince the administration to change their minds.”

“A group like that exists?” Grandpa Vremya asked, raising an eyebrow. “And the people don’t care that they aren’t allowed to eat whatever they want?”

“I’m not sure,” Azalea said, her brow furrowing. “It seems like this administration vets products before they go on the market to make sure they’re safe for consumption. If the products are deemed as harmful, the administration blocks their sales.”

“Oh,” Grandpa Vremya said. “How did this become a problem for me to solve?”

“Emily can’t solve it,” Azalea said. “She said she tried her usual method of bribery, but it didn’t work. Next, she tried blackmail, but that failed as well. Her third method of doing business is coercion, and since we’re significantly strong enough and happen to be at the capital already, she asked us to be her hired thugs.”

“Oh.”

“Are you still playing your game?” Azalea asked, her brow furrowing. Clearly, Grandpa Vremya was not paying as much attention to her as he could be. “I thought you already won a bunch. How long are you going to keep playing? Before this, the longest subject you took to master was painting, and that only took three days. You’ve been playing this game for over a week.”

“There are many characters in this game,” Grandpa Vremya said. “It takes a day to master the playing style of five of them.”

Azalea placed her hand on her forehead. For some reason, she felt like Grandpa Vremya was straying from his goal. “And this is helping your nascent soul become domineering?”

“It’s one of the best ways to become domineering,” Grandpa Vremya said. “I almost can’t believe I hadn’t thought about it before. With every game played, I can crush the hopes and dreams of five people at the same time. Every time their main building explodes, my nascent soul grows a little more.”

“Is playing your game more important for your cultivation than getting titan flesh back on the legal market?” Azalea asked.

“It is way more helpful for my cultivation,” Grandpa Vremya said. “If I defeat this food and drug administration, all I’ve done is crush one person with my strength. How long will it take to do that? A day or two? In that time, I’ll have defeated over a hundred people. The two simply can’t be compared in terms of efficiency.”

Azalea exhaled. “Alright,” she said and stood up. “I’ll just ask Ancestor Rachel to do it then.” She left the room, leaving Grandpa Vremya to his game.

***

After some thinking, the initial anxiety from the death threat had vanished from Karl’s mind. Although it might’ve been the way the Moon Lotus Sect did things, they were a part of the intergalactic society now. How could they murder him and his family with all the laws in place? However, a large part of his anxiety had been relieved because he relocated his family to another location. As for himself, hah! He was a cultivator. How would he be afraid of tackling a challenge head on? In fact, he already implemented plans to put the Moon Lotus World in its place. If they wanted to grow, then he’d inhibit them as much as possible.

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In the business world, the most important thing wasn’t wealth—unless, of course, one had an obscene amount of it. The most important thing was having connections with the right people! As one of the top dogs of the business world, Karl had plenty of connections. Just because one avenue was closed didn’t mean all of them were. It didn’t matter that Dave didn’t help oppress the Moon Lotus World. There were other people who would. The head of the Food, Drug, and Elixir Administration was one of Karl’s connections, and with one phone call, a source of the Moon Lotus World’s income had been cut off.

Karl leaned back in his seat, feeling pleased with himself. There was a brand-new table in front of him, and like the change of scenery in his room, there was a change in his luck. Not only had he obstructed the Moon Lotus World from selling their now-illegal steroids, but he had also slowed the growth of their industrialization. He had analyzed Dominator Metal Buttkicker. It was simply a modified battlesuit. If Karl were in charge of creating them for sale, he would cut out the middleman, the producer of the battlesuit, and create his own factory for battlesuit production. With that in mind, Karl called a few friends, and magically, the materials needed to build factories on the Moon Lotus World were suddenly in short supply.

There was a knocking sound on the door, and Karl’s brow furrowed. No one ever knocked on his door. His secretary usually called him in advance if there were any visitors. As for the secretary, she never knocked either. There was a speaker and microphone outside the door that she used to alert her presence. If someone was knocking, then they must’ve been new to the company, but someone new would never be on speaking terms with him, the CEO. “Who is it?” Karl asked and fixed his posture. He tapped on his table, and a display appeared, revealing a beautiful woman standing outside of his door, holding a large package. Behind her, there was his secretary, who looked a bit flustered.

“Special delivery,” the woman said, her facial expressions unchanging.

Karl’s brow furrowed even more. “I didn’t order anything,” he said, speaking towards his desk. His voice was transmitted outside his door via the speaker.

The woman raised her arm, and there was a sound akin to thunder as she punched the door. It flew off its hinges and slammed into the wall behind Karl. If it had been launched just a few more feet to the right, Karl’s head would’ve probably been knocked off. The woman walked into the room and dropped the package onto the ground. Karl swore he heard the package whimper. Was there a person inside of it!? “W-Who are you!?”

“Rachel,” the woman said. She opened up the package, revealing a plump, quivering man that Karl recognized as the head of the Food, Drug, and Elixir Administration. Rachel grabbed the man by the back of his shirt’s collar and lifted him up, choking him in the process. “According to this man, you’re the reason the Moon Lotus World is being oppressed.”

Karl swallowed. “What you’re doing is illegal.” Upon seeing Rachel’s bored expression, Karl decided to change his approach. “How about we call it even here? I’ll leave the Moon Lotus World alone, and you’ll walk out of this office. We can pretend like nothing ever happened between us.”

“When a problem arises, I always tear it out by the root,” Rachel said and released the plump man. “That way, no problems arise in the future.” She drew her sword, and the secretary gulped before fainting. She must’ve seen something happen earlier because there was already blood on the sword.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,” Karl said, holding his hands up in front of himself. “If you kill me, you’ll become a criminal. The law won’t let you go free, and if they can’t catch you, they’ll do even worse things to your planet than I ever did.”

“The law? I’ll kill it too,” Rachel said and took a step forward. “I’ve heard there’s a false immortal that resides in the federation. Perhaps this will drag him out. I’ve always wanted to see how strong false immortals are. If I can observe one in person, it’ll be easier for me to break through in the future.”

“He’ll kill you! It won’t matter if it’s easier to break through if you don’t survive the encounter!”

“When I was younger, people always told me I’d die,” Rachel said. “You’ll die if you fight the frost-horned snake. You’ll die if you try to steal from the Ten Faces Sect’s herb garden. You’ll die if you attempt to understand the meaning of cold by submerging yourself in molten ice.” A faraway-look appeared in Rachel’s eye, but a moment later, she shook her head. “Yet, I’m still here, alive and well and even stronger for having done all these sure-death things. Goodbye.” She swung her sword. “Don’t mess with the Moon Lotus Sect in your next life.”