The Unbroken Ledger

Liu Chenming has an Earth-grade spiritual root—a talent that appears once among thousands. He should be on top of the cultivation world. Instead, he finds himself hauling spirit beast manure for two caddies of rice per load. A political chess piece between feuding immortal lineages and stripped of family resources, Chenming must claw his way through Mount Zhenyuan's brutal merit system while his peers soar ahead. But Chenming has something most cultivators lack: a pragmatic mind that sees techniques as problems to be solved. When traditional marrow tempering fails him, he cobbles together a mining technique and his Earth-grade root into something new. When money runs out, he reverse-engineers bureaucratic loopholes. While others follow ancient manuals, he's rewriting them—one stolen technique and sketchy innovation at a time. Between copying merit contracts, inventing techniques in his spare time, and navigating clan politics, Chenming's path seems clear. Until one day, he realizes that destiny is fickle when reality rests on the Sea of Suffering.