The two hundred newly minted engineers followed Sun Yi to the R&D facility, their faces a mix of confusion and anticipation. They had been promised a major project, but the details remained shrouded in administrative secrecy.

Sun Yi stood at the front of the room, scanning his workforce like a CTO addressing a new department. “You are the elite, the technical backbone of this corporation. We are about to initiate a critical development cycle. But before we write a single line of rune code, I need to make one thing clear: this is a Black Project. It is classified Top Secret. You are all effectively signing a non-disclosure agreement right now. If a single word leaves this facility, you will be terminated—and in this sect, termination is literal. Do we have an understanding?”

“Yes!” The crowd roared. They didn’t know what the product was, but the gravity of the CEO’s tone demanded compliance.

Sun Yi nodded, satisfied with the immediate buy-in. “Good. If Internal Affairs catches anyone leaking IP, there will be no severance package, only enforcement of the harshest Policy. Now, for the compensation structure: The total bonus pool for this sprint is 300,000 Points. Allocation will be performance-based, determined by the Board based on individual contribution. The projected timeline is a two-week sprint.”

The room erupted. “300,000 Points? That’s a massive budget!” “For a two-week sprint? What kind of flagship product are we building?” “I just got hired and I’m already on a high-priority project. This company moves fast!”

Sun Yi watched the morale spike. In the corporate world, loyalty was expensive, but excitement was cheap—provided you dangled the right numbers. “If anyone feels they cannot handle the workload or the confidentiality, the door is open. No penalties for opting out now.”

He waited. Silence. Not a single resignation.

“Excellent. Project ‘Microwave Detector 2.0’ is officially live.”

The workflow shifted immediately. Sun Yi didn’t just dump the schematics on them; he implemented an agile development structure. He acted as the Lead Architect, handling the core theoretical framework. The seven Rank 2 Refiners served as Team Leads, managing the fabrication of sub-modules, while the Rank 1 staff handled the component assembly and stress testing.

Sun Yi’s goal was twofold: speed up production and break the traditional “silo mentality” of cultivators. In the past, refiners guarded their secrets like dragons hoarding gold. Sun Yi was forcing them into an open-source, collaborative environment. He needed a self-sustaining engineering department that could iterate on products even if he wasn’t in the room.

Two weeks passed in a blur of rune-scribing and prototype testing. Sun Yi completely detached himself from general administration to focus on the R&D crunch. However, the ripple effects of his restructuring were tearing through the rest of the sect.

The ‘Open Source’ initiative had triggered a frenzy. Seeing the Refining Hall’s success, disciples flooded the libraries of the Alchemy, Formation, and Talisman Halls, desperate to upskill before the next hiring round.

But this hyper-growth came with a cost.

Inside the Internal Affairs Hall, Elder Qin Chu stared at the ledgers, his face pale. The Qingyun Sect was booming, yes, but the operational costs were astronomical. The ‘upskilling’ meant disciples were burning through practice materials at a terrifying rate.

We’re bleeding cash, Qin Chu thought, pacing the room like an ant on a hot pan. The original forecast gave us six months of runway. Now? With this burn rate, we’re bankrupt in thirty days.

He was the CFO of a startup that was growing too fast for its bank account. He had considered interrupting Sun Yi multiple times, but the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the R&D lab was absolute.

Suddenly, a massive pressure descended from the sky. Qin Chu’s knees buckled, but his face lit up with relief. He looked up to see Patriarch Qingxuan landing in the courtyard, dust settling around his robes.

“Master! You’ve finally returned!” Qin Chu rushed forward, looking like a drowning man spotting a lifeboat.

“I’ve been away for some time,” Qingxuan said, his voice calm. “Has the sect collapsed?”

“Not yet, but we are facing a liquidity crisis,” Qin Chu said, his voice trembling. “Resource consumption has spiked due to the reforms. We have one month of runway left, maximum. Master, we need a capital injection immediately.”

Qingxuan didn’t blink. He simply waved his hand, and a Storage Ring floated toward Qin Chu.

“I anticipated this. Process these assets and stabilize the reserve. It should buy us some time.”

Qin Chu caught the ring and scanned its contents with his Divine Sense. His jaw dropped. The ring was a warehouse of high-value assets. It was packed with rare herbs and, more shockingly, the corpses of over thirty Golden Core demon beasts.

In the cultivation market, raw materials from Golden Core beasts were blue-chip stocks. Processed correctly, this was enough wealth to extend their runway for two years.

“Master…” Qin Chu lowered his voice, glancing around. “Did the… ‘Microwave Detector’ actually work?”

Qingxuan’s expression turned grave, then shifted into a grin of pure satisfaction. “It didn’t just work, Qin Chu. It changed the game. You know the metrics—a Nascent Soul cultivator entering the Myriad Demon Forest usually faces a ninety percent mortality rate. It’s a suicide run. But with that device? I navigated the Red Ocean without tripping a single alarm.”

The Patriarch’s eyes gleamed. The detector had allowed him to bypass the territorial Apex Predators and loot the resource-rich zones they guarded. He had essentially walked into a bank vault while the security guards were looking the other way.

“The Myriad Demon Forest is a strictly regulated market,” Qingxuan mused, “but that device is the ultimate regulatory bypass. The resources in there… if we can scale this, the sect’s valuation will skyrocket.” He looked at Qin Chu. “What is the CEO doing? Has he shipped the new version?”

“Acting Sect Leader Sun is currently in a code-lockdown with the engineering team,” Qin Chu reported. “He’s been in the lab for two weeks. No updates yet.”

“Leading the team?” Qingxuan frowned. “Who is he leading? We only have fifteen refiners.”

“Ah, about that…” Qin Chu quickly briefed the Patriarch on the recruitment drive and the expansion to two hundred staff.

“Two hundred?” Qingxuan blinked, processing the scale of the expansion. “So, while I was gone, he didn’t just hold the fort; he aggressively scaled the workforce? Good. Very good.”

Before he could say more, a thunderous roar erupted from the direction of the Refining Hall. It wasn’t an explosion of fire, but of voices—the collective cheer of two hundred people witnessing a miracle. The sound rolled over the Qingyun Sect like a shockwave, causing disciples in every hall to look up.

“That’s the R&D lab,” Qingxuan said, his eyes sharpening. “Let’s go.”

He dissolved into a streak of light, launching himself toward the commotion with Qin Chu scrambling to keep up. The product launch had begun.