Pay-to-Win Cultivation: I Get 10,000x Returns

Chapter 281: Used in Every Aspect of Daily Life

Returning to the island’s surface, Su Yunmiao turned to Zhang Xian. “Since you’re back, now is the perfect time to inspect the progress on your new combat puppets. Yuanshen and Miyou have been pulling all-nighters for weeks. The prototype phase is moving incredibly fast.”

Zhang Xian readily agreed.

With a casual flick of her pale wrist, Su Yunmiao released a concentrated pulse of spatial energy from her palm. The light expanded, tearing open a stable, shimmering rift in the air—an artificial mustard-seed pocket dimension.

The group stepped through the portal, and the enclosed space instantly opened up into a sprawling, hyper-industrialized manufacturing platform.

In the dead center sat a colossal, state-of-the-art forge.

All across the platform, hundreds of utility puppets moved with flawless, mechanical efficiency. They were busy hauling massive crates of raw Star Marrow Iron, Top Grade Spirit Stones, and highly complex, precision-machined mechanical components that Zhang Xian didn’t even pretend to understand.

Dominating the far end of the facility was a gargantuan, pagoda-shaped smelting furnace. The monolithic structure featured over a dozen massive injection ports. Clusters of specialized puppets—and a handful of human cultivators—were stationed at these ports, continuously pumping highly concentrated, elemental Spiritual Qi directly into the furnace core.

Inside the furnace, apocalyptic flames roared toward the ceiling. The deep, rhythmic thumping of heavy pneumatic hammers echoed through the cavernous space as the raw materials were violently smelted and forged.

Scanning the production line, Zhang Xian immediately spotted a familiar face: Wen Yan.

Stripped of her luxurious Guiyuan Sect Palace Master robes, she was currently wearing a simple, utilitarian green Daoist uniform. She was hyper-focused, aggressively channeling wind-attribute Spiritual Qi into one of the furnace’s primary injection ports to stoke the flames.

Sensing Zhang Xian’s arrival, she briefly glanced up, then immediately snapped her head back down, dedicating one hundred percent of her attention to the furnace.

Her absolute worst nightmare had just walked into the room; she didn’t dare make eye contact.

A quick scan confirmed that her aura had stabilized at the early Foundation Establishment stage. Her stat-recovery was progressing nicely. Satisfied she wasn’t slacking, Zhang Xian immediately ignored her.

Far more interesting were the massive, half-assembled combat puppet prototypes currently undergoing rigorous stress testing. Supervising the diagnostics were several Zhiyin models, all identical in appearance and aura—clearly, the AI had copied herself to optimize the workflow.

Scanning the back of the workshop, Zhang Xian finally spotted two young men hunched over a chaotic pile of precision diagnostic tools. Both looked severely sleep-deprived and utterly unkempt.

One of them was the chronically socially anxious Inspector Wei Miyou. The other man was technically a stranger, but Zhang Xian instantly pegged his identity: The ultimate shut-in, the Head Seat of Heavenly Puppet Peak, Su Yuanshen.

However, watching the two interact, Zhang Xian couldn’t help but frown slightly.

Noticing the large group entering the workshop, Inspector Wei visibly panicked. He muttered something entirely incomprehensible to his partner and practically sprinted behind a massive stack of raw materials, completely refusing to make eye contact or offer a greeting.

The other young man, however, finally looked up from his schematics. He offered a warm, surprisingly well-adjusted smile and walked over to greet them. “You must be little friend Zhang Xian, correct? I’ve heard the legends. It’s an honor to finally meet the man funding all of this. I am Su Yuanshen, Head Seat of Heavenly Puppet Peak.”

The group immediately offered their formal respects. Zhang Xian included, they had all benefited heavily from the puppet ‘Su Ling’, and meeting the legendary, reclusive architect behind the avatar commanded respect.

Zhang Xian was pleasantly surprised to find that the actual Su Yuanshen had significantly better social skills than his puppet proxy.

Su Yuanshen eagerly took on the role of tour guide, leading the group through the sprawling assembly lines. He enthusiastically broke down the highly complex process of refining the ultra-dense Star Marrow Iron and walked them through the cutting-edge structural architecture of the new puppet chassis.

“I have to say, this Star Marrow Iron absolutely lives up to its mythical reputation. It is an absolute nightmare to melt down,” Su Yuanshen admitted, gesturing to the roaring pagoda furnace. “If we didn’t have a captive Heaven-grade wind spiritual root continuously stoking the core, combining fire and tribulation lightning, we’d still be stuck in the pre-heating phase.”

He then turned to Zhang Xian, his eyes shining with absolute fanaticism. “And the theoretical blueprints you provided? Absolute genius! Fusing your radical, modern design philosophy with our ancient, proprietary Sect techniques is going to birth a generation of combat puppets that will completely break the current meta!”

“Based on our current burn rate, the first batch of prototypes should clear final assembly and live-fire debugging in about six months. When these things hit the field, they are going to absolutely terrify the entire continent!”

Hearing the projected timeline, Zhang Xian waved a hand like a true venture capitalist. “Excellent work! I know crunch-time is brutal, so I appreciate the Head Seat and the engineering team putting in the overtime. Don’t worry about the overhead. Once the final production run is complete, I will fully reimburse Heavenly Puppet Peak for every single ounce of Star Marrow Iron consumed during the R&D phase, plus a massive bonus for your trouble!”

Hearing that absolutely insane flex, Su Yuanshen and Su Yunmiao immediately locked eyes, sharing a look of profound, barely contained euphoria.

Star Marrow Iron wasn’t just expensive; it was a Peerless divine material that would normally cause entire Sects to go to war over a single brick. And Zhang Xian was just casually offering to restock their entire R&D expenditure.

Su Yunmiao let out a light, melodious laugh. “Zhang Xian, if you’re going to be this aggressively generous, then this Ancestor-Master will happily drop all pretenses of humility and accept. The Sect treasury could certainly use the padding.”

[Ding! Current Favorability: 49.]

With the factory tour concluded, Su Yunmiao suggested they retire to her private tearoom for a debrief. The group exited the pocket dimension. True to form, the socially crippled Inspector Wei refused to leave the workshop, sending one of the Zhiyin units to act as his physical proxy for the meeting.

Stepping out into the crisp island air, Su Yunmiao triggered a mental command. A massive, heavily armored, matte-black flying dreadnought slowly descended from the clouds—the exact same Top Grade luxury vessel Zhang Xian had gifted her previously.

Li Fuxi and Lin Yinyin both shot Zhang Xian a highly significant, side-eye glare.

Zhang Xian rubbed his nose awkwardly. It seemed the Ancestor-Master was absolutely obsessed with her new toy, using the multi-million-stone warship as her personal daily driver just to flex on the locals.

As soon as they boarded the extravagant vessel, a squad of high-end puppet maids proficiently served platters of premium spirit fruits, delicate pastries, and steaming cups of tea.

Zhang Xian took a sip. The tea was crisp, refreshing, and practically overflowing with dense Spiritual Qi.

He almost rolled his eyes. It was the extremely rare Green Qiao Tea he had gifted her. It was glaringly obvious that Su Yunmiao had completely replaced every aspect of her daily lifestyle with the absurdly expensive premium items he had thrown at her.

Once everyone was comfortably seated in the luxurious lounge, Su Yunmiao looked at Zhang Xian, her expression shifting from relaxed to highly serious. “Zhang Xian. You are officially the most famous man on the continent.”

“I’ve reviewed the high-definition recording stones that the Heavenly Abyss Alliance leaked to the public network. To face-tank that ancient bastard Taichu for that long, while only at the early Nascent Soul stage, and not get instantly vaporized? Every time I see you, you shatter my understanding of common sense.”

Zhang Xian immediately waved it off, downplaying the achievement. “Ancestor-Master, please don’t hype me up. I just stacked a ridiculous amount of passive defense and burned through an entire GDP’s worth of premium talismans to keep my HP bar from hitting zero. I had absolutely zero offensive pressure. The only thing I managed to do was give him a really terrible haircut.”

Su Yunmiao shook her head firmly. “Do not sell yourself short; it is an utterly monstrous achievement. I am not exaggerating when I say this: at the Half-Step Soul Formation realm, Taichu and I have begun to tap into the fundamental laws of reality. We have preliminary access to a ‘Domain’.”

“We can literally hijack the ambient power of heaven and earth. It is a completely different plane of existence compared to a standard Nascent Soul cultivator. The fact that you survived in his airspace for that long, let alone managed to land a physical counterattack… if I hadn’t watched the unedited playback myself, I would have called it physically impossible.”

Zhang Xian leaned back in his plush chair. “It’s still not enough. Taichu managed to log out, and he took half of the Hatred origin with him. I guarantee he’s cooking up an even worse endgame scenario. That’s exactly why I’m rushing this heavy-ordnance puppet order. The next time I run into that old fossil, I want an entire mechanized army backing me up so I can properly jump him in a back alley.”

“You have nothing to worry about on that front,” Su Yuanshen chimed in, leaning forward eagerly. “While it’s difficult to run exact DPS calculations on a chassis made primarily of Star Marrow Iron, our combat simulations project their baseline output will easily match a mid-to-late stage Nascent Soul powerhouse.”

“But the real game-changer is the autonomous targeting system,” Su Yuanshen continued, tapping his temple. “You won’t need to manually micromanage their aggro. Once you refine the central core and implant a sliver of your Divine Sense, the onboard AI will independently execute complex offensive and defensive maneuvers based purely on your general intent. They will be terrifyingly flexible.”

Zhang Xian nodded in deep satisfaction. His current system-issued puppets had high base stats, but they required constant, manual micromanagement to optimize their DPS. Worse, because they lacked a true spiritual circulatory system, forcing them to cast Top Grade techniques like Shadow Flame was incredibly clunky and massively nerfed the damage output.

Upgrading to a fleet of semi-autonomous, smart-targeting raid bosses was a massive quality-of-life improvement.

Su Yunmiao offered a confident, reassuring smile. “Focus on your preparations. Once Lele finally wakes up, I will personally escort you back to the Central Continent. My last duel with Taichu was interrupted before a clear winner could be decided. Next time we meet, I will permanently put him in the ground.”