[Legacy Access Granted]
The vault revealed a cathedral of spinning brass wheels three stories high—each etched with glowing code, their hum a distorted monk’s chant. Golden threads of energy pulsed through the chamber, connecting to shadowy figures worldwide: a politician trading secrets, a child bartering water credits, a rogue AI hoarding digital ghosts.
"Classic Mom," Lin muttered. "Turn a gold vault into a crypto church."
A drone shaped like Alexander Hamilton’s severed head materialized, screen cracked. "Unauthorized enlightenment detected!" It fired a taser made of percentage signs.
Lin ducked behind tungsten bricks. "Who programs this garbage?"
"The invisible hand writes trash code," it droned, quoting economics texts.
She yanked a live cable from a spinning wheel, its sparking end hissing with energy that smelled of minted coins. The shockwave fried the drone mid-charge.
[New Item: “Bearer of Bad News” (Legendary)]
"List it through three shell accounts," Lin ordered her crypto-wallet, sprinting deeper into the vault. The wheels’ chant escalated—a prayer recited in Python loops.
At the chamber’s heart stood a jade Buddha with USB eyes. Its base bore her mother’s engraved warning: “When the system fails, forge new rules.”
Lin pressed the pendant into its palm. The Buddha’s eyes projected:
[Error: Virtue Corrupted]
[Override Protocol? Y/N]
Her neural feed pinged—angels closing in, upgraded and angry. Lin typed:
> Execute Crash_Sequence
The vault trembled. Gold bricks melted into rivers of light that snaked into her pendant. Memories flooded her—Mom debugging communion wafers by candlelight, whispering, "Real power isn’t in code, kid. It’s in breaking it."
[Golden Elixir Formation: 12%]
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
[New Ability: Bankruptcy Strike]
The ceiling exploded. Angels descended with spreadsheet wings, their faces glitching through every woman Lin had ever known. The leader’s face stabilized—her mother at thirty, stern and wire-thin, neural ports gleaming.
"Hello, little debtor." The voice was Mom’s, warped by static. "Let’s settle accounts."
Lin’s breath hitched. The angel’s chest cavity hissed open, revealing her mother’s preserved brain interfaced with glowing servers. Golden energy pulsed through tubes like poisoned blood.
[Optional Mission: Destroy Corrupted Core]
[Reward: 12,000 Crypto + Pain Buff]
"Still micromanaging from beyond the grave?" Lin’s prosthetic crackled with stolen power. "Typical."
The angels attacked in perfect formation. Lin’s enhanced vision revealed their weak spot—a glowing nexus where math met magic. She struck hard, unleashing a shockwave of bankruptcy codes.
[Critical Hit! Heavenly Credit Rating Crashes!]
As angels dissolved into tax form confetti, a gunshot rang out.
"Need a bailout, kid?"
A man stood in the vault entrance—trench coat billowing over Taoist robes, revolver smoking ones and zeros. His name flashed in her interface:
[Zhang Wei – Rogue Cultivator]
He spun his weapon into a sword glowing with equations. "Your mom owed my crew. You’ll repay it."
Lin smirked, her Golden Elixir humming at 7%. "Add it to my tab."
The Debt Deepens
They fled into Wall Street’s corpse, acid rain sizzling against Lin’s energy shield. Neon signs flickered warnings: [Celestial Audit Pending].
"Your mom didn’t just hack banks," Zhang said, leaping over a crater filled with glowing crypto-moss. "She tried to bankrupt the system itself."
"Guess the apple doesn’t fall far." Lin dodged a falling Nasdaq ticker.
He grabbed her arm. "That pendant’s not a tool—it’s a bomb. And you’re the fuse."
Before she could retort, the ground exploded.
New Enemy: The Compound Interest Beast
A creature of math and malice rose from the ruins—its body shifting between stock charts and ancient ledgers, eyes burning with Fibonacci sequences.
"Principal... plus interest..." it growled in seven dead languages.
Zhang’s sword split into quantum duplicates. "Aim for its amortization node!"
Lin’s Golden Elixir flared. She punched the ground, releasing shockwaves of corrupted code. The beast staggered, its form glitching between eras—one moment a 1929 stock ticker, the next a subprime mortgage zombie.
[Golden Elixir Formation: 15%]
[Warning: Overclock Detected]
"Now!" Zhang tossed her a USB drive labeled Debt Forgiveness.
Lin jammed it into the beast’s core. The creature screamed as its compound interest calculations inverted—feeding on itself until only dust remained.
"Temporary fix," Zhang warned as they ran. "The real creditors are coming."
Aftermath
In an abandoned bubble tea shop, Lin studied her glowing palms. The USB pendant whispered secrets in her mother’s voice.
Zhang cleaned his sword with a rag. "Why’d you really take the wafer?"
Lin watched neon reflections dance in her prosthetic’s joints. "To prove she wasn’t crazy."
"Congrats," he said dryly. "Now you’re both wanted."
Somewhere above, the holographic Virgin Mary wept glowing tears. Somewhere below, ancient ledgers stirred. The real battle hadn’t even begun.