Chapter 336 - 235: Summit (1)
From the moment the chain appeared to the moment it touched the Moon’s surface was but an instant.
The next second, the ice-blue chain vanished without a trace, as if it had never been there.
If Lin Qi hadn’t been observing so intently, he would have missed the scene entirely.
Lin Qi wasn’t even sure if he could have seen it without his Spiritual Vision.
’Theoretically, beyond a one-kilometer range, Spiritual Vision only shows what normal sight would. That chain should have been physically visible.’
He mulled over the scene while continuing to observe with his Spiritual Vision.
The Moon showed no further strange activity. The tremors had vanished completely, as if it hadn’t been provoked at all.
Seconds ticked by. By the time the Door’s cooldown finished and Lin Qi returned to the Cyber World, nothing else of significance had occurred.
...
「12:31 AM, March 23rd, 2089. Lin Qi’s room, Alliance Mansion, Cyber World.」
Lin Qi let out a sigh of relief.
’That chain must be the effect of a Tier Five Extraordinary Item. Judging by what I saw, it’s definitely a measure intended to deal with the Blood Moon.’
’This means the Dragon Country Command Headquarters in the Doomsday World is relatively trustworthy. For now, the Doomsday World should be safe.’
’I can still travel to the Doomsday World as usual.’
Having reached this conclusion, Lin Qi felt a great deal of his pressure lift.
It had been less than a month since he first opened the Door, yet Lin Qi had already walked a path that would take an ordinary Wizard at least twenty years, advancing from Tier One to Tier Three.
This accelerated Cultivation was an effect of the high concentration of Spiritual Particles in the Doomsday World.
In such an environment, as long as he had enough Extraordinary Items, Lin Qi might soon complete all the advancements of a Tier Three Wizard and rapidly reach Tier Four.
At Tier Four, he would be a true powerhouse. His own Extraordinary Power alone would be enough to put him on equal footing with any major corporation.
With the Doomsday World on his side, this process might not take very long at all.
That was how important the Doomsday World was to Lin Qi.
Fortunately, the Doomsday World was still stable. It could continue to provide Lin Qi with resources like Extraordinary Items and the highly efficient Spiritual Particle environment for Cultivation.
The business of delaying the Blood Moon’s mutation was settled for now. The next major event was just a few hours away.
The Asia Political Zone Advanced Pharmaceutical Enterprise Summit—a crucial event for every pharmaceutical company in the Asian Administrative Region—was about to begin.
Lin Qi and Liu Xuan had been working hard in Alliance City for a long time in preparation for this summit.
Liu Xuan was still busy even now, mediating and pulling strings.
Originally, the summit would have determined the very survival of United Pharmaceutical, and Liu’s Heavy Industries was also expected to be constrained by its outcome.
But now that the risk factors had been eliminated one by one, the summit had transformed into a battlefield for United Pharmaceutical to seize profits.
Whichever company came out on top at the summit would get to claim the Si Clan’s legacy.
The Si Clan’s leaders and heirs were still alive, located in the Council Building right here in Alliance City.
But everyone with inside knowledge already knew the Si Clan was about to pay the price for its actions.
Once the summit was over, Si Li, Si Ranran, and the rest of the Si Family would likely no longer have a reason to be kept alive.
Even if Jin Yuanxi didn’t make a move, far too many major corporations wanted the Si Family dead.
The Liu Clan was one of them.
’This won’t be a peaceful night. I can’t expect to get any rest. I’ll continue to meditate to keep myself in peak condition and watch out for any potential assassination attempts.’
Assassination was an inescapable tool in the Cyber World, the common prelude to all-out corporate war.
Whenever profits were difficult to divide and negotiations between major corporations broke down, assassinations would begin.
The missile that had been used to intimidate him before was proof enough of that.
He entered a state of Meditation, simultaneously activating his Spiritual Vision to remain vigilant of his surroundings.
The Alliance Mansion was ablaze with light.
This was normal for the Alliance Mansion, of course; the only difference now was the large number of people from various pharmaceutical companies bustling about inside.
He remained on high alert, but the incident Lin Qi had anticipated never occurred.
He didn’t know if Liu Xuan’s negotiations had been successful or if the four major corporations simply had other plans.
In any case, the night passed without incident.
...
「A little after seven in the morning, before the summit was scheduled to begin.」
Lin Qi had already received a number of emails.
The vast majority came from people like Xiao Gu and Yuan Hong of the Medical Small Business Alliance.
Thanks to Xiao Gu’s efforts, over 170 small businesses had reached an agreement with United Pharmaceutical to participate in a share-swap deal.
Although most of these small businesses received a pitifully small number of shares in United Pharmaceutical, they were all perfectly willing.
United Pharmaceutical had traded twenty percent of its own shares for a 51 percent stake in each of the small businesses, a collection of assets worth a combined total of nearly 70 billion.
From a purely economic standpoint, the deal was a bad one for the small businesses.
But they were betting on hope. They were betting on the future of United Pharmaceutical!
If United Pharmaceutical managed to become a major corporation in the future, achieving a status in the Asian Administrative Region’s pharmaceutical industry comparable to Liu’s Heavy Industries’ dominance in the field of Prosthetic Body engineering, then they would have come out ahead based on the sheer financial value of the shares alone.
And that wasn’t even considering the surplus value those shares held within the Cyber Society.