Sun Yi took a deep breath, his eyes sharpening. He slipped effortlessly into the persona of a disappointment-fueled manager addressing a team of underperforming executives.

“Twenty years,” Sun Yi said, his voice dripping with professional disdain. “For two decades, what has this Board actually accomplished?”

He paced in front of them. “You have invested your limited energy into unlimited internal friction. Power struggles. Office politics. You’ve burned through our capital while the sect’s market share plummeted. Ask yourselves: What value have you added to the Qingyun Sect?”

The five Golden Core Elders froze, stunned by the audacity.

“Even if the Chairman promotes one of you today,” Sun Yi continued, pointing at them, “do you have a roadmap to return us to profitability? No. You only see the CEO title as a golden parachute—a way to access the expense account for personal gain. You don’t have a vision for the company; you only have greed.”

Sun Yi had activated full ‘Group Roast’ mode. The Elders were shaking with rage. If looks could kill, Sun Yi would have been pierced by ten thousand arrows.

But even a clay figurine has a temper. Being lectured by a Level 3 Qi Refining intern was the ultimate insult.

Elder Jin Jue snapped first. “We are Elders! We have dedicated our lives to this foundation! We desire strength for the sect just as much as anyone!”

“Exactly!” Qin Chu yelled. “Past performance does not predict future results! How dare you assume we can’t lead?”

“You say we are unfit?” Li Tai sneered. “And you are? A bug in the mailroom thinks he can run the conglomerate?”

“We are Golden Core cultivators,” Han Yun added coldly. “If we aren’t qualified, a trash-tier cultivator like you is a joke. If we let you run things, the Qingyun Sect will become the laughingstock of the industry.”

Patriarch Qingxuan frowned. He watched the debate with growing concern. The divide between the old guard and this strange new disciple was revealing deep structural cracks in the organization.

Sun Yi laughed, a sound of pure arrogance.

“If they laugh, let them laugh,” Sun Yi said, dismissing the concern with a wave of his hand. “When our stock price goes to the moon, we will buy out their sects and fire them. If one beating doesn’t silence the critics, we’ll beat them again.”

He looked at the Elders. “And let’s debunk a myth right now: Management competence has zero correlation with personal combat strength. Does a General need to fire a rifle? Does the architect lay the bricks? If I sit in the CEO chair, I don’t need to fight. I need to strategize.”

The room went silent. The Patriarch leaned forward, intrigued. This was a novel concept in a world ruled by fists.

“You talk big,” Jin Jue growled, his face twisted in a sneer. “Prove your strategy.”

Sun Yi smiled. He turned to the group, his expression shifting to one of analytical focus.

“Let’s conduct a SWOT analysis of our geography,” Sun Yi said. “What is your assessment of the Qingyun Sect’s location? What are the growth vectors? What are the market barriers?”

The Elders hesitated. It was a test.

Sun Yi didn’t wait. He pointed at Jin Jue. “Elder Jin, give me your market analysis.”

“Hmph. Everyone knows this,” Jin Jue scoffed. “We are in the Chaos Demon Commandery. To the West, the Myriad Demon Forest—infested with beasts. To the North, the Endless Ice Plains—a frozen wasteland. To the South, the Endless Sea—full of leviathans. To the East, hostile competitors like the Black Wind Stockade and Evil Spirit Valley.”

Jin Jue spread his hands. “We are surrounded. It is a ‘Land of Four Dead Ends.’ The resource nodes are saturated. Growth is impossible because the environment is hostile.”

“So, you see it as a bad location?” Sun Yi pressed. “A distressed asset?”

“It’s a death trap!” Jin Jue shouted. “Why do you think a declining sect like ours ended up here? We were pushed out of the prime markets!”

Sun Yi looked at the others. “Is this the consensus of the Board?”

“Obviously,” Qin Chu grunted.

“A fool could see it,” Li Tai muttered.

“If we had a choice, we wouldn’t be here,” Han Yun added.

Sun Yi shook his head, looking at them with pity. “And this is why you are unfit to lead. Where you see a dead end, I see a Blue Ocean.”

“Nonsense!” Jin Jue barked.

Sun Yi raised a finger. “Do you know the word ‘Crisis’ (Wei-Ji)? It means Danger plus Opportunity. This location isn’t a trap; it’s a monopoly waiting to be exploited.”

He walked to the center of the hall, gesturing grandly.

“The Myriad Demon Forest is an untapped warehouse of raw materials—demon cores, skins, rare herbs, minerals. The Ice Plains? A distinct product line of ice-attribute resources. The Endless Sea? Infinite seafood stocks. These aren’t barriers; they are supply chains.”

Sun Yi’s voice rose. “And because the environment is dangerous, our competitors are scared to enter. That danger is our ‘Moat.’ It protects our market share. As for the Black Wind Stockade? They are small-time gangs. Once we capitalize on the resources, we can acquire them via hostile takeover or forceful merger. This isn’t a dead end. It’s an empire.”

“You are delusional,” Jin Jue countered, his voice dripping with skepticism. “Do you think the beasts in the forest are just going to hand over their cores? Do you think the herbs will harvest themselves? The Myriad Demon Forest is a Forbidden Zone!”

Sun Yi smiled. “Why is it forbidden?”

“Are you stupid?” Jin Jue shot back. “Because the environment jams Divine Sense! It’s a sensory blackout. A Golden Core cultivator walks in blind and gets ambushed by a stealth beast. It’s suicide. Everyone knows this.”

“Correct,” Sun Yi said. “The technical bottleneck is the jamming of Divine Sense.”

He paused, letting the silence hang.

“But what if we solved that technical problem?”

Sun Yi looked at the Patriarch. “What if I could deploy a device that bypasses the environmental interference? A tool that detects beast signatures without relying on Divine Sense? If we can see them, but they can’t see us… the danger evaporates. The Forbidden Zone becomes an open-pit mine.”

“A device to replace Divine Sense?” Ye Luo, the head of R&D, scoffed. “Impossible. That’s vaporware.”

“It’s not vaporware. It’s engineering,” Sun Yi retorted. “I have the schematics. The Myriad Demon Forest is our leverage. It is the key to my restructuring plan.”

“You… you can really build such a thing?” Patriarch Qingxuan asked, his skepticism warring with hope. A Level 3 Qi Refining disciple solving a problem that had stumped ancestors for millennia? It sounded insane.

“I can,” Sun Yi lied smoothly—or rather, projected confidently. “But I need R&D budget and executive support.”

The Patriarch narrowed his eyes. “Timeline?”

“One year,” Sun Yi said firmly. “I need a twelve-month runway. For a cultivator, one year is a snap of the fingers. But in that time, I will deliver a Proof of Concept that solves the visibility issue.”

Sun Yi bowed deep. “Give me the CEO title and the authority to mobilize resources. I will turn this ‘Land of Four Dead Ends’ into the most profitable headquarters on the continent.”

Qingxuan tapped his finger on the armrest. “One year…”