Inside the cultivation chamber, Sun Yi sat cross-legged, running a full system audit of his current specs.

The results were promising. After migrating his operating system to the Five Elements Art, his True Qi capacity had increased by 500%. The data compression rate—or purity—was also far superior to standard users, and that was before factoring in the dual-core processing power provided by his second Dantian.

In terms of raw energy volume, he had already surpassed the vast majority of Qi Refining cultivators. His benchmarks likely rivaled even early-stage Foundation Establishment users.

Once I deploy the remaining four elemental nodes, Sun Yi mused, my system architecture will be fully distributed. Five independent cores, each running purified single-attribute energy. The performance metrics will likely match mid-stage Foundation Establishment hardware.

However, unlocking the remaining four gates required specific catalysts—like the Mi Luo Beast—which were currently unavailable.

Project status: On hold. Pending resource acquisition.

He moved down the checklist.

The Gold Sword Art had reached Version 1.0 (Great Perfection). The remaining four elemental sword apps needed development time to achieve a fully integrated combat suite.

The Wind Thunder Step was operational but still in early beta. Optimization required more time and resources.

As for body refining…

Hardware upgrades are stalled, Sun Yi noted. The Blood Spirit Fruit and Thunder Spirit Grass have diminishing returns. Without a new body-refining algorithm or high-tier materials, my chassis durability has hit a ceiling.

That left the most critical bottleneck: The Split Spirit Technique.

I need to expand my RAM, Sun Yi thought, rubbing his temples. * Strengthening the soul is the only way to multi-thread my consciousness effectively.*

He spent the next few days in deep R&D. Between consuming demon cores to fine-tune his elemental affinity and grinding proficiency on his sword arts, he scoured the sect’s database for any documentation on soul enhancement.

Finally, his data mining paid off.

In a fragmented legacy file, he found a reference to something called Heavenly Soul Liquid. It was a rare resource generated in specific Soul Gathering Places. According to the logs, this liquid could be directly injected to upgrade soul capacity.

The catch? It was volatile. Without specialized storage containers, it would evaporate upon exposure to standard atmosphere.

A rare, location-specific resource with high spoilage rates, Sun Yi analyzed. Classic scarcity mechanic. But at least I have a target.

“I need to locate a Soul Gathering Place,” he muttered. “Maybe I can outsource the exploration to the disciples…”

His thoughts were interrupted by a priority notification from Elder Qin Chu.

Sun Yi frowned, terminating his cultivation session. He headed straight for the central command center.

When he arrived, the five Golden Core executives and Vice-President Changqing—Er Gouzi—were already seated. The atmosphere in the boardroom was grim.

Seeing Sun Yi enter, they stood up and bowed. “Sect Leader.”

Sun Yi took the head seat, his expression neutral. “Sit. Why the long faces? Did our stock price crash?”

Elder Jin Jue sighed heavily. “Sect Leader, we have a critical failure in our talent pipeline. In the last two weeks, fifteen disciples at the Qi Refining Great Perfection stage attempted the Foundation Establishment upgrade. Ten suffered fatal system crashes—death. Two suffered catastrophic data loss—crippled cultivation. Only three survived with minor corruption.”

Sun Yi’s eyes narrowed. “That’s an abysmal success rate. Explain.”

Elder Qin Chu looked pained. “We’ve run out of catalysts. The sect’s inventory of Foundation Establishment Pills—over two hundred units—has been depleted by the recent surge in promotion attempts. Without the pill to stabilize the process, the upgrade failure rate is catastrophic.”

Sun Yi paused. “Wait. I saw two disciples in the Battle Tower—Wan Yu and Zhou Yun—successfully upgrade without pills. Is the pill truly mandatory?”

Er Gouzi spoke up, his voice somber. “Sect Leader, those two are outliers. They possess High-Grade Spirit Roots—premium hardware. Their compatibility with the upgrade process is naturally high.”

He took a breath. “For Mid-Grade hardware, the unassisted success rate is 30%. With the pill, it jumps to 50%. But for Low-Grade hardware… the success rate is effectively zero without the pill. Even with it, the probability is less than 10%.”

Er Gouzi looked down, his fists clenched. “Most sects won’t even hire Low-Grade talent for this reason. But Qingyun Sect… due to our history, we have a large workforce of Low-Grade disciples. Your recent policies boosted their levels rapidly, but now they’ve hit a hard ceiling. Without pills, they are essentially dead-ended.”

Sun Yi leaned back, his mind racing.

Low-Grade hardware has a <10% upgrade success rate even WITH the catalyst? He realized with a start that he was also running on Low-Grade hardware. If I try to upgrade to Foundation Establishment, I have a 90% chance of bricking my system? That’s unacceptable risk. "Can the Alchemy Hall manufacture these pills?" Sun Yi asked, turning to Elder Ye Luo. The Elder shook his head bitterly. "Impossible. The entire supply chain for Foundation Establishment Pills is monopolized by fewer than five major sects on the Tianyuan Continent. They control the raw materials—the primary ingredients. Even if we had the recipe, we can't source the components. We’ve always had to import them at exorbitant markup." Sun Yi’s expression darkened. "So, we’re being strangled." "Exactly," Ye Luo confirmed. "We’re allotted a quota of twenty pills every ten years. The price is fifty thousand Spirit Stones per unit. The stock we just burned through took decades to accumulate." Sun Yi scoffed. Classic cartel behavior. Controlling the core technology to artificially inflate prices and limit competition. It’s exactly like the chip wars back on Earth. "Suggestions?" Sun Yi asked, looking around the table. Elder Li Tai cleared his throat. "We have capital now. I suggest we send a procurement team to the black market or neighboring regions. If we offer a premium, we can surely secure stock." Sun Yi looked at him like he was an idiot. "Elder Li, you’re thinking like a consumer, not a strategist," Sun Yi said coldly. "You can't just 'buy' your way out of a embargo. If the supply is artificially constricted, throwing money at it only drains our liquidity without solving the root cause. They won’t sell us enough to threaten their dominance." He stood up, walking to the window. "We cannot rely on external vendors for mission-critical infrastructure," Sun Yi declared. "We need to verticalize our supply chain. If they won't sell us the chips, we'll build our own foundry." The Elders stared at him, confused. "Sect Leader?" "We are going to solve this bottleneck permanently," Sun Yi said, turning back with a ruthless glint in his eye. "We need to control the core technology ourselves."