Ezio learned the first real rule of his new cultivation the hard way:
If he chased the future, it slipped.
If he tried to force it, it lied.
So he stopped chasing.
He sat.
The dormitory was cold in the mornings. Rain clung to the window glass and turned the world outside into blurred ink. The cultivation lamp on his desk flickered like a tired star, its glow barely enough to cut the shadows in the corners. The cracked mirror on the washstand watched him without mercy.
Ezio sat cross-legged on the floor with his back against the bedframe, hands resting lightly on his knees. His wrists still bore faint red marks from silk practice. His nose had healed from the last bleeding, but the memory of iron remained in the back of his throat.
He inhaled.
Slow.
Measured.
He did not breathe like a warrior.
Warriors filled their lungs like they were swallowing fire.
Ezio breathed like someone counting coins.
In… hold… out.
Behind his sternum, his Illusion Seed pulsed faintly—warm as a buried ember. But wrapped around it now was a colder structure, thin and rigid like a ring of black metal: the stolen Ledger stabilizer he had ripped from a Machiavelli disciple's aura.
Together they did not harmonize.
They negotiated.
When the Illusion Seed surged with desire and sensation, the Ledger ring tightened, narrowing it into something usable. When the Ledger ring demanded cold calculation, the Illusion Seed warmed it, keeping it from turning his mind into a machine.
The balance was fragile. So fragile Ezio could feel it wobble with every stray emotion.
He closed his eyes and listened inward.
At first there were only thoughts—his ex-girlfriend's name like a bruise, the sound of that poison needle scraping under his door, Vesper's eyes measuring him, Lucifer's laughter.
Then, faintly, the futures came.
Not visions of battle.
Not cinematic prophecy.
Tiny flickers, like reflections on water:
—A cup falling from a table.—A student turning left instead of right.—A teacher pausing before speaking.—A glance held too long.—A lie forming like a breath held half a beat.
They came and went.
Ezio did not reach for them.
He let them drift.
Lucifer's voice floated in, bored and cruel.
"Kiddo, if you stare at the void long enough, the void starts charging rent."
Ezio didn't open his eyes. "Be quiet."
Lucifer laughed softly. "Oh? New tone. Someone thinks he's disciplined now."
Ezio exhaled. The Ledger ring tightened, smoothing his mind. The Illusion Seed warmed, keeping him from going numb.
For the first time since he stole from Machiavelli, he made it through an entire meditation without bleeding.
When he opened his eyes, the lamp was still flickering. The dorm was still poor. The university was still indifferent.
And he was still nobody.
But the storm inside his chest had quieted.
Not gone.
Quiet.
That was his first real victory.
He read the Machiavelli Primer at night.
Not like a desperate thief gulping stolen wine.
Like an accountant reading a contract.
Machiavelli's scripture did not praise honor. It did not speak of righteousness or destiny. It spoke of systems: how power moved through people, through fear, through scarcity, through desire.
Ezio's eyes skimmed lines and his mind began to map them.
A city does not collapse when it is attacked.It collapses when it cannot feed itself.
A man does not betray when he is wicked.He betrays when betrayal is cheaper than loyalty.
Greed and fear are the two hands that move the world.Lust is the rope that drags men into rooms they shouldn't enter.
Ezio swallowed, feeling the words settle into his bones.
He thought of his ex-girlfriend again—how she had chosen "safe."
Not because she was evil.
Because safe was cheaper than loyalty.
Lucifer hummed. "See? She wasn't a villain, kiddo. She was just an investor."
Ezio's jaw clenched. "Shut up."
Lucifer laughed. "You hate hearing it because it makes sense."
Ezio kept reading anyway.
The Primer taught him something that made his chest tighten with cold clarity:
Money was not a thing.
Money was emotion with a number.
Greed quantified.
Fear priced.
Desire packaged.
If you could sense the emotion, you could sense the movement.
And if you could sense the movement—
You could be early.
He didn't go to Vesper for the idea.
Vesper came to him.
Two nights after his meditation finally stabilized, Ezio returned to the Crimson Pavilion and found her waiting in the mirror hall. The smoked-glass mirror showed him cleaner now, less wavy—still unfinished, but no longer splitting.
Vesper's eyes flicked over him once, sharp as a blade. "You stopped bleeding," she observed.
Ezio nodded.
Lucifer whispered, smug. "Tell her you're becoming civilized."
Ezio ignored him.
Vesper walked past him without touching, her silk sleeves trailing like shadows. "Good. That means you can be used again."
Ezio's stomach tightened. "Used?"
Vesper looked back, expression calm. "Don't pretend you came here for kindness."
Ezio's throat worked. "What do you want?"
Vesper's lips tilted slightly. "Do you know how the university survives?"
Ezio frowned. "Sponsors?"
"Trade," Vesper corrected. "The righteous sects preach purity and sell medicine at triple price. The sword sects talk about honor and accept bribes to 'protect' caravans. Everyone speaks one language in public and another in private."
She gestured toward a curtain at the far end of the Pavilion. "Come."
Ezio followed.
Behind the curtain was a smaller chamber lit by low lanterns. There were no mirrors here. Only a long table, several chairs, and a wall covered in pinned papers and inked charts.
Numbers.
Routes.
Names.
Symbols that looked like company crests and sect seals.
Ezio's eyes narrowed. "What is this?"
Vesper's voice was low. "A market."
Ezio's stomach tightened. "A black market?"
Vesper's gaze sharpened. "No. A real market."
She tapped a paper pinned to the wall: a chart with a rising line, then a sudden drop, then a slow climb again.
"Shares," she said. "In caravan companies. In alchemical workshops. In spirit-ore mines. In shipping routes. In information networks. Even in sect-owned businesses."
Ezio stared.
Lucifer's laugh was soft and delighted. "Kiddo… welcome to the real cultivation world. Where qi is optional and money isn't."
Ezio swallowed. "Why show me this?"
Vesper's eyes held his. "Because you have something most traders would sell their organs for."
Ezio's breath caught. "Future sight."
Vesper didn't confirm or deny. "Probability sensitivity," she said instead, precise. "And emotional sensing."
She leaned closer. "You can feel greed before greed becomes buying. You can feel fear before fear becomes selling. That's not power on the battlefield, Ezio. That's power that compounds."
Ezio's hands trembled slightly. "I don't have money."
Vesper's smile was thin. "I didn't say you'd start with much."
She placed a small pouch on the table. It landed with a soft clink.
Ezio looked at it.
Not heavy. Not impressive.
But enough.
"A loan?" Ezio asked, wary.
"A test," Vesper replied. "If you lose it, you prove you're reckless. If you win, you prove you can grow without making noise."
Lucifer whispered, eager. "Take it. Worst case, we steal more."
Ezio shot a glance at the mirrorless wall, as if Lucifer might be visible there anyway. Then he reached out and opened the pouch.
A handful of small spirit coins. The kind used for minor purchases, not cultivation breakthroughs.
Ezio's throat tightened.
"This isn't much," he said.
Vesper's eyes were calm. "Neither are you."
Ezio swallowed the insult like medicine. "How do I trade?"
Vesper pointed toward the wall of papers. "Casanova's network runs an underground exchange. Not for the peasants. For the people who understand that everything is for sale."
She slid three paper slips toward him. Each had a name and a symbol.
SPRINGWAVE CARAVANS — shipping routes along the southern river.BLACK IRON FOUNDRY — weapon production for multiple sects.SILK MOON APOTHECARY — spirit herbs and sedative incense.
Vesper's voice softened, almost instructive. "Choose one."
Ezio stared at the names.
His heart started to pound, not from fear, but from the weight of choice.
He closed his eyes for a heartbeat and breathed.
In… hold… out.
He opened them and let his senses reach outward—not through the room, but through the idea of the businesses, through the names connected to countless minds and desires.
It was subtle, faint, like touching a spiderweb in the dark.
Springwave felt steady—dull, reliable. People wanted supplies; caravans moved. No sharp emotion.
Black Iron felt… hungry. Ambition, competition, violence. A sharp rise of pride and fear. Dangerous.
Silk Moon felt warm and tense. Desire and exhaustion. People seeking relief. People hiding problems. A soft but constant pull.
Ezio's Ledger ring tightened slightly.
A probability flicker surfaced:
—A rumor of bandits on the southern route.—A weapons contract dispute.—A new university policy about sedatives during exams.
Ezio's eyes narrowed.
He saw another flicker—two seconds, like a shadow-puppet:
A notice board.A stamp.A student coughing.A line of robed envoys entering the apothecary.
Then it vanished.
Ezio's breath caught.
Lucifer whispered, thrilled. "Oh? You saw a ripple."
Ezio's gaze returned to the slips.
Silk Moon.
He tapped it.
Vesper watched him carefully. "Why?"
Ezio forced his voice steady. "Because fear and desire both live there. And both move money."
Vesper's smile widened slightly. "Good."
She slid him a small ledger booklet and a charcoal pen. "Write it down," she said. "Every reason. Every feeling. Every doubt. If you can't explain your choice, you're gambling. If you can explain it, you're cultivating."
Ezio's hand trembled as he wrote.
He placed a small portion of the coins into the trade—nothing that would ruin him if lost. It felt like stepping onto ice.
His stomach churned.
Then he waited.
The next day, the campus notice board confirmed it.
A new rule posted in neat ink:
SEDATIVE INCENSE WILL BE REGULATED DURING UPCOMING EVALUATIONS.ALL APOTHECARIES MUST REGISTER SUPPLY SOURCES.
Ezio's eyes narrowed as he read it.
He felt the ripple before he saw it: anxiety tightening around students, exhaustion, fear of failing. Demand for sedatives would spike before the regulation fully hit.
Silk Moon would profit—briefly.
Ezio's chest tightened with cold satisfaction.
Lucifer whispered, proud. "Kiddo… you didn't predict a punch. You predicted a policy. That's how real killers win."
Ezio went to the exchange that evening through a side channel Vesper provided. It was not a physical place, but a network of sealed slips, coded messages, and intermediaries who never met the same face twice.
He adjusted his position quietly.
Not greedily.
Not loudly.
The profit was small.
A few coins.
Almost insulting compared to the pain he'd endured to earn the ability.
But when he poured the coins back into his palm, the numbers looked different.
Not as money.
As proof.
A little win.
A tiny compounding edge.
Ezio sat in his dormitory that night, coins arranged neatly on the desk, the cultivation lamp flickering above them. He stared at the pile and felt something that wasn't joy.
It was more restrained.
More dangerous.
A sense of inevitability.
"I can do it," he whispered, barely audible.
Lucifer's laugh was soft and warm for the first time in a long while.
"Yeah," Lucifer said. "You can."
Ezio closed his eyes and breathed.
In… hold… out.
Behind his sternum, the Illusion Seed pulsed—still small, still fragile, still far from power.
But it pulsed steadily.
And around it, the Ledger ring held firm, cold and patient.
Outside, rain continued to fall.
The university continued to pretend it was righteous.
And Sung Jin Ezio—still nobody, still weak, still unremarkable to anyone who didn't know where to look—began to understand a truth more frightening than any sword technique:
Legends didn't always rise on battlefields.
Sometimes they rose in silence.
Coin by coin.
Breath by breath.
Step by step.