Grind o’ clock. Private yacht in the Florida Keys.

  World’s most beautiful female CEO lounged half-naked on the deck, discussing blockchain-LLM-crypto cultivation with a group of enamored Young Masters and Mistresses. Inspirational. A bespectacled boy in a sharp striped suit managed eleven companies by speaking into ten phones at once, while trading stocks on five laptops, while brokering a real-estate deal with the regional Governess of Hiu Dynasty. Aspirational. Identical twins with platinum sunglasses, ten platinum R*lexes on each wrist, and gel-slick black hair bought, sold, re-bought, and re-sold, an empty paper-mug to a sage-realm cultivator in the span of two minutes, reaping multiplicative profits with each flip, becoming billionaires. Disruptional.

  The yacht was a hubbub of activity that didn’t sleep or need cocaine to stay awake. Here, at SS Hustle Capital, where ten future defining deals were made each second, the Grind was the only drug available, and success was the only rest.

  John Sigman had founded this entire enterprise for the sole reason of being able to optimize his schedule by combining breakfast and political lobbying. Even before the Apocalypse, he’d been hustling non-stop, working when others had fun, working-out when others slept, and improving his mindset 24/7, 30 hours per day. He’d reaped the rewards in cash and success.

  Today he was going to leave all of that behind him. Today he was going to take a long step deep into the big leagues above the big league.

  With a careful scoop that cleaned the crystal cup, John finished his organic yogurt. He straightened his already perfectly straight white collar, stood up, and offered a hand-shake to the bald sunglasses man-in-black before him.

  “Deal. The file is sent,” said John. “Congratulations, you’re now the proud owner of ten thousand years of the Hiu Dynasty’s cultivation secrets.”

  “You’ve done your country a great service, Mr. Sigman.” The bald man fished out a phone far too small for his hands. Satisfied, he nodded and put the phone away.

  Click, click, click, the locks on a metallic suitcase by his side opened. The suit uncuffed it from his wrist and hefted it onto the table, moving John’s yogurt cup away to present the insides to him.

  “As the Vice Director of the Bureau of Paranormal Defense, I impart you temporary permission to initiate the deployment of nuclear weapons against the invading force. Take revenge against those Xianxia sons of bitches. May they rot in hell and may God have mercy on us all.”

  “Thank you.” John’s gaze swept over the digital map of the states with red circles around all of the Hiu Dynasty’s holdings. The keys were already inserted. The Red Button was ready and primed. “But I’m personally not much for revenge. After all, I’d never be here if not for them.”

  Vice Director’s brows furrowed in shock. A shout of alarm came from one of the many government mooks disguised as guests of SS Hustle City. They reached for weapons with Qi-enhanced speed, but it was already too late.

  Sky clapped. Streaks of pearlescent light petrified the hustlers and guests and security alike, freezing the deck of SS Hustle City into a statue garden of eerie beauty. Eternal Pearl, the hundred-thirty-first princess of the Hiu Dynasty descended from the heavens in a beam of unnatural light, right on schedule.

  “Mistress Hiu Le.” John did not bow, for it would be downright mocking to mask the mood of this negotiation under shallow pleasantries.

  Words crept from Hiu Le’s mouth like a curse, “John Sigman, today brings an end to the days of your meddling in the affairs of the Immortal Hiu Dynasty.”

  “Au contraire, today our long and profitable negotiations of mutual benefit come to an end that will satisfy all parties involved.”

  “You sold your country?” gawked the Vice Director.

  John Sigma scoffed, lazily pressing the button. “I wouldn’t say that. All I did was buy leverage. The nuclear warheads will detonate, when my finger is released.”

  Realization flashed behind the bald man’s sunglasses. He bit on a kill-switch, detonating the explosive charges strapped to his chest to take John with him.

  Or would have, had he not turned into a statue of pearlescent crystal.

  John Sigman tutted his tongue. “Weak. He lacked the right grindset. Let’s start there, you owe me replacements for the resources you’ve statuefied.”

  “This one is curious. You believe you will survive your encounter. Elaborate this delusion.”

  “Survive?” He laughed. “I don’t survive. I succeed.”

  Her fingers moved and Qi responded. Pearly stone began creeping up John Sigman’s feet, slowly transforming him into a statue of magical stone. “An assumption spoken from a place of ignorance. Kill switches aren’t unknown to cultivators. A great number of formations use such mechanics, heartworms are common, and their mechanisms far more advanced than a button press. You are arrogant to presume that your ability to raise your finger exceeds the speed of my ability to permanently install your skull inside the button.”

  To demonstrate her point, Hiu Le appeared beside John, her finger on top of his as it turned to pearly stone.

  “Ah, but can you make it to the mainland and find replacement batteries in… five minutes thirty three seconds?”

  Though her beautiful face remained perfectly schooled, her pause betrayed the shock.

  John the perfect winner’s smile. He could hear the pearls churning in her brain, hunting for solutions that did not exist.

  “Now, we talk business.”

  Pearly transformation crawling up his neck halted, and in an instant, reversed. John adjusted his collar and gestured for her to take a seat, which she did, after tossing the petrified Vice Director into the ocean.

  “Speak, mortal.”

  “Since we’re on a timeline, let’s skip the introductions and the part where we call each other’s bluffs. Something you need to know about me, I’m big on self improvement. The Grind, you see, it’s never over. And never has that been more true than after your people set foot on Earth. In a way, that’s the moment it became true in the first place, what with Dao and Qi and what other supernatural phenomena you brought along. We aren’t entirely inept, of course, when it comes to the supernatural. America had its contingencies, as I’m sure you’re aware. Some of them are rather formidable. But they’ve exhausted their usefulness, and so I come to you, Hiu Le, with a win-win proposal.”

  She glanced at the clock.

  He dismissed her anxieties with a nonchalant shrug. “Don’t worry. We still have two minutes before detonation. My offer is this, swearing on your Dao, you are to guarantee my safety and promise me access to the tutelage of the best Dao teacher available to your resources. In exchange, I give you the Bureau of Paranormal Investigations, the remaining special task forces, and Earth’s largest nuclear arsenal.”

  John extended a hand, knowing he had her. Eliminating the American resistance movement was a source of competition to the heirs and heiresses of the Hiu Dynasty. Hiu Le clasped his hand, sealing the deal with a Dao oath.

  Just like that, by eight-thirty a.m. John had had a cold shower, work-out, hustled, fucked, made a billion dollarinos, and secured an alliance with the future Sovereign of the Hiu Dynasty by flipping the US for the greatest profits in history. What’s your excuse?

  Power crawled under his skin, flowing through him like a tidal wave. Sigma Grindset kept on turning, accumulating power into a bank he’d not yet needed to tap into even once, swelling in value like the mother of all pre-rugpull crypto schemes. It wasn’t like he was hoarding the asset for the sake sake of hoarding though. Nah. John was simply saving up for being able to flip the entire Earth and grow his hustle to Galactic scale.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Always look for the next game. Always up your game. Never rest. Always hustle.

  That’s the Dao of Sigma.

  ***

  We sensed it.

  A great disturbance in the Dao far, far away.

  We also sensed an immense mass of pearly Dao that had arrived at the Hole and entered its caverns.

  “It seems the nuke situation was resolved, then,” said Kevin. “Faster than expected.”

  “She’s the lesser deity realm cultivator from Townberg, the one who froze the First Chad.”

  “Ah, naruhoto, naruhoto.” Kevin’s face hardened. His fingers danced on the handle of his katana. “Yes, I understand. Speak but the word, and I shall lend you my katana. With my skybeast monstergirl waifus as my witness, I shall show this would be m’lady the dangers of crossing a true gentleman.”

  “Not today.”

  Saint realms we could defeat on our own. Lower stages of the Immortal realm we could match together. However, facing the higher Immortals and lesser deities unprepared would be foolishness. If we were at Freedomtown, I’d have guaranteed Big Dick energy, but then Keving would lose the homeground advantage his Neckbeard Lair, waifu collection, and dorito crumble formations provided him.

  Departing was the wise option, but I was physically unable to bring myself to take a step towards the escape. The act of escaping itself would be a violation of Chadness. The half a step I’d taken sideways felt like a mechanical cheese grater against my Chadcore, shaving off chips of Big Dick energy.

  “Urgh,” I grunted. “Kevin, you may have to go on alone. A Chad cannot flee.”

  Thankfully, a Chad is never alone.

  “Fret not my dearest brother.” Kevin adjusted his glasses. “Mhufufufu, I have foreseen this and calculated a solution. Fear not. The journey we are about to embark upon is not a cowardly flight from a fight. Nay! That tunnel between Cusmi-chan and Hili-sama’s lightly stained hug-pillows leads straight to the core of this titanic Sky-beast’s corpse. I propose we race there and hunt the monster at its center, before our foes get wise to our schemes. And if slaying the core leads to this place exploding and ejecting everyone within to random places across the continent, then that is a price we have to pay for victory.”

  “Truly, your IQ techniques are powerful, brother.” I found myself able to take step towards a worthy goal. “Lead on.”

  ***

  The being was blood of the Sky, a spawn of the Azure King, and the last of its kind. It knew its kingfather was dead, slain eons ago by the tiny being clad in the stolen light of its cousingods. But though kingfather was gone, the spawn’s task remained.

  Protect it.

  These had been the first, the last, and the only words kingfather had spoken to it while drawing his dying breath. This was its purpose as the last surviving organ of the kingfather’s body, and the being had carried this task out without question or complaint for as long as it could remember.

  Lesser creatures had come to steal it since kingfather’s demise, only these were clad in stolen light that was a pale shadow of that which the slayer had worn. But they had been numerous.

  The being had tapped into the power of the Core and spawned extensions of itself and sent a tide of claws and teeth to flush clean kingfather’s veins.

  It had worked, for a time.

  Then came the lesser creatures of brighter light, not as bright as the first, but strong enough to slay its extensions and bind its power. They made their weird songy sounds and communicated, thinking thoughts of imprisonment and exploitation. Useful as a spirit stone generator, one of them had thought.

  The being did not understand, but it understood the pain that came from their strange ways of wielding stolen light.

  After that, its life was one of strange unfamiliar hunger and a tide after tide of lesser beings throwing themselves into its jaws. Lesser beings were devoured. Its extensions were slain. Stolen light came in. Stolen light became stone. Stonelight was taken out. Life was ebb and flow, of always hunger, of always fighting.

  Body of kingfather was moved many times, it always felt it, like a painful jerk on the Core. It hurt much to feel how kingfather’s body warped with each move, old veins twisting, old bones shifting, memory of kingfather fading. The being took this sorrow out on the lesser beings, and for a time it was enough to forget.

  Lesser being sometimes delved deep into it. Some think of its extensions, study them. Others study Core or kingfather. They collect pieces of its extensions to make for fake teeth or fake hide.

  But this new lesser being, who’d lived inside kingfather’s vessel for longer than any in recent memory was not studying. Was not making fake hide or weapon. Instead, it made… something the being could not comprehend, something it had glimpsed of only in the minds of lesser beings weak enough to mindpeek, or heard of from whispers of its smallest scouting extensions, who’d managed to return from the Elsewhere Outside kingfather.

  The lesser being had constructed a home. Strange…

  What was more strange, was that it used pieces of extensions to fake make copies of lesser beings, big ones, small ones. Half extension, half lesser being. It communicated with them, though they did not communicate back. More strange…

  The lesser being also tried to communicate with extensions, when slaying them. More more strange…

  Could it be… Perhaps? Was the lesser being attempting to communicate with it? Unprecedented. The being was of Sky’s blood, the protector of the Core. Why communicate, when it only spoke language of teeth and claws.

  Then came the other strange lesser being, this one of similar size, but less round and less hairy. Both powerful in the power of stolen light. For a short while, they communicate, then, when a lesser being of even more powerful stolen light enter the veins of kingfather, they move!

  Come straight for it and the Core!

  It fought, tooth and nail and claw and tail, it fought.

  Waves of extensions it had not had to spawn since last time kingfather was moved were fielded in numbers dwarfing the small town of lesser beings living in the godcorpse’s mouth. It designed new extensions to counter the lights of these lesser beings, creating great monsters with a hide of hundred claws and speed faster than the one with the claw of metal. And it created an extension with muscle more compact than inside the lesser being of muscle, one that could regrow itself from a drop of blood a hundred times and not know exhaustion. Light of the Sky crackled in the extensions, evenly matching the power of their stolen lights.

  And yet, like against the lesser beings who had so long ago invaded kingfather and bound the Core, it knew defeat.

  Lesser beings used what they sometimes called ‘Strategy’ or ‘Tactics’. The one with a claw of steel killed the foe of the muscled lesser being one hundred and one times, even while carrying several of the strange copies it had crafted. The one of muscle twisted into knots the extensions covered in blades.

  Azure blood of the Sky littered its innermost lair, the place where Core was hidden. Corpses of its extensions lay in that blood, unmoving. The two lesser beings waded it, reaching the Core.

  This is it. The hairy lesser being laid its copies around the Core. Touch my shoulder, once I shatter the binding formation, the titan’s body will explode.

  What of your waifus?

  Hairy lesser being touched its ocular organ, which was wet. I will find them again, when this is all over.

  Alright. Go ahead.

  Hairy lesser being sheathed its steel claw and closed its eyes. It made a “Hyup!” sound, and the stolen light flashed with great intensity.

  Ancient bindings snapped and kingfather’s body broke and it knew that its sacred mission and life’s purpose had ended.

  It awoke to an alien sensation in an alien place.

  Bright azure wrapped above in the biggest bubble it had ever seen. Big shiny eye glared at it so angrily that it hurt to glare back. Big not lesser beings not extensions not Azure King bodyparts rustled and wooshed towards the glaring eye. They were of odd color, green if it remembered correctly from minds of lesser beings. Floor was also green, and hairy.

  This was the Elsewhere Outside kingfather.

  But how?

  It looked down and saw legs resembling those of lesser beings, though they were the color of Sky. Stumbling, it managed to navigate the odd configuration of the lesser being body to stand. It had forelimbs of a lesser being too, and after a short inspection, found that its head was also like theirs, albeit with horns and teeth. This was the sculpted false-body of one of the hairy one’s waifu’s.

  Inside it pulsed the Core.

  Protect it.

  The old memory rushed it like a tide of lesser ones. It remembered now, that the words that had awoken it had not been spoken to it. There had been another being in that space, a piece of the Sky King’s body, the one who had died with all the rest of them.

  It realized that it was the Core.

  It was not part of the Sky King.

  It was something he’d tried to protect.

  A strange tide churned inside its chest. Wet layer over the eyes obstructed the being’s vision. It made strange sounds that lesser beings about to die sometimes made. It was free and in a strange place and it did not know what to do.

  All it knew was that this waifu of the haired one had been called Scaly-chan (according to the written communication on its neck). It decided to call itself Scaly-chan. Scaly-chan’s first decision was to find hairy lesser benign and attempt to communicate with it. Perhaps by making waifu copies of other lesser beings like hairy one had made out of its extensions?

  That was Scaly-chan’s go-to plan, until she learned the elementary basics of common sense, spontaneously vomited from the shame of thinking itself as Neckbeardman’s waifu, and promptly converted to marxist feminism, becoming one of the lead figures of Feminist Cultivation Coven.