This story has been removed for publication. Thanks for your interest!

"All good things must come to an end."

~ Chapter 1 ~

        Wen Kaixin used to be so happy.
        Back then, she was that chubby little girl who could make the whole neighborhood laugh at her silly antics.
        Sometimes, she would strut around in front of their house wearing her mother's stilettos with a thick make up on her face. The old grandmas would have a good laugh while watching the cute little girl act like a mature adult, which was really hilarious to look at.
        But gone are those days of her blissful life.
        Now, at the age of 29, the previous bubbly little girl had become one of the successful web novelists out there.
        Having written quite a number of outstanding works, it could be said that Wen Kaixin had already built a name for herself.
        Her works mainly revolved in romance, and most of them have happy endings.
        However, a month ago, Wen Kaixin's readers caused a great commotion on the forums.
        All of them were asking for their beloved author's whereabouts!
        A few months had passed already and yet, there was still no news about her!
        Her readers thought that she was just busy in real life that's why she was not able to do her daily updates.
        But after the few days of waiting turned into months, they started to have some doubts in their hearts.
        Did something happen to Author Wen?
        Unbeknownst to them, the writer they had been waiting for would never come back.
        Wen Kaixin would never be back again.
        ...
        The woman being talked about was lying on her king size bed, staring blankly at the bare white ceiling of her room. 
        Countless story drafts and notes were strewn across the floor of her bedroom, not leaving a single space unoccupied.
        The woman appeared to be lost in thought as her eyes were not fully focused. The hand which was holding her phone by her side had also visibly tensed up.
        Unknowingly, another bout of tears streamed down her face as a painful sob escaped her lips.
        Wen Kaixin remembered another happy memory she had of her husband who had died a few months back.
        He was not only her husband, he was her editor, her confidante, her best friend, her mentor, her business partner...
        He was her everything.
        After losing her parents at such a young age of 9 and taken in by her distant relatives until she turned 18, Wen Kaixin thought that she would never find the solace of home and family.
        Although her distant relatives were good to her, it was only because she had inherited the money of her parents. She lived in their house as though she was nothing but a tenant who monthly pays for her food and lodging.
        As for why they did not think of forcefully taking away the money, it had something to do with Wen Kaixin herself.
        At such a young age, although others viewed her as a mischievous chubby little girl, Wen Kaixin was actually being trained by her father about business matters.
        Their business had something to do with publication. The Little Kaixin was very much interested in books that she would often follow her father to their company to have a look at how these books were being made. Of course, she would also beg her father to let her read the yet to be released books. 
        Father Wen always relented, but in return, Little Kaixin should be willing to learn business with him.
        Little Kaixin was caught in a dilemma. 
        She only wanted to read and was not willing to use her reading time to learn some business that only adults do.
        But her love for books overpowered her unwillingness.
        Thus, Little Kaixin learned business from Father Wen so she could read the books in the company.
        However, a tragedy happened.
        The publication company that their family owned was caught in a huge fire! Every single thing had turned into ashes. Many of the company workers had died, including the president, Wen Shuji, and his wife, Xue Yun.
        As if a work of fate, the Little Kaixin was out on her school trip and was thus spared from this incident.
        With no other descendants, Wen Shuji's and Xue Yun's assets were given to their only child, Wen Kaixin.
        But because of her young age, it would not be possible for her to live by herself and so, Wen Kaixin decided to live with her distant Aunt from her mother's side, Xue Yu.
        With the knowledge passed down by her father, Wen Kaixin was not in a rush to spend the money she got. Instead, she planned on how to make it grow by means of investments.
        Dealing with her Auntie Xue Yu was easy. She only had to give her 'enough' money and her Auntie would not really care much about what she would do.
        Living like that for almost a decade, after she had turned 18, Wen Kaixin left that household and decided to live by herself.
        The projects she had invested into had considerably profited and it was also at this time that she finished her studies.
        After graduating with an MBA degree, Wen Kaixin decided to remake her father's business. But with the recent advancement in technology and the rise of globalization, she opted to follow the trend.
        Wen Kaixin invested in web-based publication.
        It was also then that she met Jun Yiran, her late husband, who was her business partner then.
        Memories after memories of how they started their business, of how they spent most of their time together, of how they realized their feelings for each other... all came flooding into her, almost drowning her in sorrow.
        Wen Kaixin became a writer because of him. He told her that he loved to read her stories so much. This pushed Wen Kaixin to start her journey to becoming one of the successful web novelists in the present times.
        It could be said that there won't be an "Author Wen" today if not for Jun Yiran.
        But now that Jun Yiran left, Author Wen had also departed the scene...
        Never to be seen again.


The Wang Haige Forum had a literature section, which was divided into two subsections: discussions on paper books and online publications. Zhang Zian didn't usually visit these two sections. But today he was lying in the reclining chair, browsing the forum on his phone. 
As he clicked the online publication discussion area, a post attracted his attention.　　
[Seven Kill]: I'm a new author. Questions for you: how many more "favorites" should I gain per chapter to be considered acceptable?
There were all kinds of answers below the post. Some of them were joking, some were serious.　
[Old City]: It depends on the website. I'm writing a fantasy on Qidian. I got 20 more favorites on the first day the book was cleared for publication, then 11 on the second day, and 20 more favorites each day after Day 3. So far I wrote 28,000 words, and had 140 favorites. 
[Academy]: Impressive! Let us know the book name!
[Fan Wujiu]: I think you are here to show off.
[Tian Haoyu]: You get favorites with so few words? Is this a scam? Why did I only get 40 favorites after writing 50,000 words?
Zhang Zian was more confused after reading this. Was this the difference between the big names and small names? But some are not doing so well. Pi just wrote 2000 words, so it should get at least 40 favorites by 50,000 words, shouldn't it? At least, it would not be the worst.　　
Some statistic nerds talked about the fundamentals below the post.　　
[Akmond]: Qidian is the biggest website of the business, and it's a hard for newbies to get ahead. Today is my day off, and I have nothing else to do. So let me spend time to tell you how hard it is to be a writer at Qidian. I just checked the Qidian Library. Only counting new books under 300,000 words, there are 18,000 of them that were updated in 3 days! Only 2000 of them had a signed contract. The odds of getting a contract is 1/9. 
[Seven Kill]: This hard? This makes my newbie heart as cold as ice...
[Akmond]: Hard? No, this is only the beginning. After signing a contract, Qidian starts promoting your book to let more people read it. But is signing a contract enough? Not at all. After that, your book will be on the promotion list along with other new books. There are about 5-6 rounds of promotion for new books, and in each round, only 4 books out of 10 will qualify for the next promotion. Only 0.4% of all books can defeat the others and make it to the Power Ranking list. 2000 times 0.004 equals 8, which means, among the 18,000 books, only 8 of them can rise above all and be released on the shelf. While the remaining 99.99% of books are left in the ocean of books without readers.  
[Youth of Wind]: As a newbie who has not published yet, I'm so discouraged!
[Akmond]: Hehe, paid lease is only the beginning. You must have 3000 readers willing to pay for your book, then your book can enter the Power Ranking. Do you know the percentage of that? Only 3 or 4 books among the 8 can enter the Power Ranking! 
[Akmond]: Now let's sum up. If you just published a book, here is your future: if you aim at getting a contract, then your chance is 1/9; if your goal is the Power Ranking, your chance is 1/2250; if you want your novel to be tagged as Recommended and be remembered forever by Qidian, then your odds are 1/5000. When you write at Qidian, you have 1/5000 chance to be the numerator, and 4999/5000 chance to be the denominator! A general builds his success on ten thousand bleaching bones. This is an appropriate description! 
Some people expressed their doubt below the post.　　
[Smile]: Are there that many? 18,000 people entering the online writing business at the same time?
[Akmond]: Of course, you'll be surprised. According to official statistics, there are 1.4 billion people, and there are 60 million online writing! 60 million! Crowds and crowds of people are entering the online writing business. You have a better chance to succeed by being an extra in Binhai Studio, being picked by a director passing and make you the next Wang Baoqiang... You may get injured by being an extra on set. Online writing is much easier, and all you need to do is be literate and able to type. But 99.99% of people end up being the denominator. 
Despite this [Akmond] was telling the brutal truth, the crowd of people who replied to the post were shocked at the statistics and cried out in despair. [Akmond] also gained a "Pro" title for his knowledge in the online writing industry. He quickly added that he was also one of the denominators, except that he failed enough times to know how to fail with swagger...　　
Zhang Zian wanted to correct him. It was not 18,000 people, but 17,999 people plus 1 monkey. But he didn't do it, as he was not in the mood to ridicule.　　
He remembered the days of bringing Famous to Binhai Studio for movies. Each day he saw many people wearing green military coats gather at the entrance of the studio and surround every production team that entered and exited, being picked and chosen like truckloads of cheap cabbage. Those chosen by production teams were happy to make a daily salary of 50 Yuan, while those who weren't picked were disappointed, and left 

like an ebbing tide, shivering in the cold wind, waiting for the next production team to arrive.　　
Back then he was thinking that it was so hard to be an extra on the set. They persevered with their movie star dreams, hoping to be the next Wang Baoqiang. But compared to them, [Akmond] seemed right, that online writers also walked the same difficult path of fierce competition, fighting hard to be the few numerators. 　 
There was a lot going on with the online writing section of Wang Haige Forum. There were a lot of posts, and it seemed that there were posts and replies every minute. Apart from the posts that discussed online writing as the one above, some posts were comments on certain novels, either good or bad. There was something strange going on: if someone posted negative comments, then the following posts were all of similar negative comments with very few exceptions. But if the post was positive, then there would be replies questioning if the author of the post was part of the paid Internet Water Army, or disguising him/herself as an ordinary reader to recommend his/her own work. 
Internet Water Army was a phrase that Zhang Zian once heard from Zhao Qi. Each time Zhao Qi visited the pet shop to buy imported cat food, she asked for a discount for doing him a favor, claiming that if she didn't help him fight the water army hired by Stars supermarket in Wang Haige Forum, his pet shop would have been out of business. He had always doubted this matter. Were there really internet water armies lurking in the Forum?　　
But these had nothing to do with him for now, nor with Pi. He decided to get Pi started with a small goal, which was getting a contract with the website and becoming the 1/9. Others could be done after. According to the posts, if they got a contract, the website would promote their work, and make the novel visible to more readers.　 
But how could they get a contract?　　



1. Download a suspicious game
2. Catch a few magical pets as partners
3. Go through interesting daily routines and lead the pet shop to a whole new level

A mail arrived from China. It was an official invitation signed by Seukang Li for the international book exhibition that he was hosting in Shanghai. He sent the invitation for two. In addition to the invitation letter, Seukang Li sent an email to Gun-Ho separately. The email was written in Chinese and Gun-Ho, who had studied in China, had no problem reading it.
 
『To: My friend, Gun-Ho Goo
I met Jien Wang yesterday. He seemed to have a great time in Korea. He said it was because of you. And, he told me that he talked to you about the international book exhibition that I am hosting in Shanghai.
I am not sure about Korea, but here in China, Newspaper Guangdian Zongju manages publication in the Beijing area, and Guangbo Yingshi Ju which is the bureau of cultural affairs and media where I work manages publication in the Shanghai area.
Since I am the one who is in charge of this bureau in Shanghai, I am hoping to have as many publishing companies participate in the book exhibition, but I am not sure how many publishing companies will actually join us. I was told that you have a publishing company—
GH Media. If GH Media's president and the owner could come to join our book exhibition, I would greatly appreciate it.
I feel like I always ask you for a favor without being of much help to you and I am sorry about it. If you could make it to my book exhibition, I would owe you big time.
From: Seukang Li from Shanghai』
 
After reading the email from Seukang Li, Gun-Ho made a phone call to President Jeong-Sook Shin in GH Media.
"Yes, sir. This is Jeong-Sook Shin."
"President Shin, I've received the first and the second book of the cartoon series that you sent to me earlier."
"We have the third and fourth books that are ready, and we sent those to you already. They will arrive at your office by tomorrow."
"Are they selling well?"
"We are already printing out the third editions of the first and second books of world history cartoon series. These books are an already-proved bestseller by Amazon.com. I knew it will be successful, but they are actually selling more than I expected."
"That's good to hear."
"The workers here were worried about it when we put them on the bookstores for the first time. Now they are very satisfied with the sales performance."
"Really? That's really nice. Umm, have you heard of an international book exhibition held in Shanghai, China?"
"Yes, I have. I know some of the publishing companies which are selling Korean books that already applied to participate in the book exhibition."
"Can't we participate in it?"
"No, sir. We are selling Japanese or American books after translating it into the Korean language. So, we don't really have our own books to promote there."
"What if we go there and import Chinese books?"
"Our market is Korea, and Chinese books are not so popular in Korea."
"I've received two invitations for that book exhibition. Would you like to go there with me?"
"Well, I don't know. I think we will probably just waste time and money by traveling to China."
"To be honest with you, the person who is hosting the book exhibition in Shanghai is my friend. He is Chinese, of course."
"Oh, really?"
"He is the director of the bureau of cultural affairs, radio broadcasting, film, television, media, and arts of Shanghai. And that bureau is hosting the international book exhibition. He sent me the invitation with an email saying I have to be there."
"Well, you should go there then, sir."
"I won't be very helpful to him if I go there by myself. I don't know much about the book publishing business. He sent me two invitations, so I was wondering if you would go there with you, President Shin."
"Well… Okay. I will go with you, sir. But the travel expenses…"
"Don't worry about the expenses for the trip. I can have GH Mobile pay for our travel expenses or I can personally bear the entire cost."
Gun-Ho had been receiving his monthly salaries from three separate companies, and he hadn't really spent much so far. Those salaries were just being accumulated in his personal bank account.
"I am in then. As a matter of fact, everyone in the publishing business wishes to participate in an international book exhibition."
"We don't have to make a contract for a Chinese book if we don't meet any good one. I just want to be there for my friend."
"Understood, sir."
"I will let you know once the trip itinerary is confirmed."
"Okay, sir."
 
After getting off the phone with GH Media's President Shin, Gun-Ho replied to Seukang Li's email.
『I guess you might feel a heavy burden on your shoulders for the book exhibition. Since I have a publishing company, I will participate in the exhibition with the publishing company's president. I am gladly taking this opportunity to see my dear friend.
Wishing our forever friendship, Gun-Ho Goo from Korea』
 
Gun-Ho was stretching himself in his office after sending out the email reply to Seukang Li when Director Dong-Chan Lee entered the office. He was with two young men.
"Sir, these are the new hires of Dyeon Korea."
"Oh, really? Please have a seat."
Director Kim and the new employees sat on a chair.
Director Kim handed over their resumes to Gun-Ho.
Both of the new employees graduated from Seoul National University and they had some experience abroad either as an exchange student or for a voluntary work. They were about 30 years old, which made them at least five years younger than Gun-Ho.
Gun-Ho looked at Director Kim and said,
"What are their job positions?"
"One person will do import and export work, and the other will do sales."
"For the accounting and general affairs positions, you said you wanted to take a few employees from the current GH Mobile's employees, right?"
"That's right, sir. We will need people with work experience for the accounting and general affairs positions, so I'm planning to take a team leader or assistant manager in those departments in GH Mobile. And we will hire two more employees for each department."
"Hmm."
Gun-Ho then looked at the new hires and said,
"Welcome aboard. You will feel a bit uncomfortable at the beginning of your work since the Dyeon Korea's building is not yet completed."
"That's okay, sir."
The two men responded simultaneously.
"Are you two from this area?"
"Yes, our parents are in Asan City."
Gun-Ho said,
"I am so happy to have decent new employees in Dyeon Korea. You will learn a lot from Director Kim here. If you work hard, you will have an opportunity to promote within the company as well. Since you start working with us even before the company's building is completed, you are one of our very first employees. I look forward to working with you two."
Gun-Ho had a handshake with each of the new employees and tapped their backs.
The new hires gave a deep bow to Gun-Ho before leaving the office.
 
While having a cup of tea in his office, Gun-Ho thought about the two young men who just joined Dyeon Korea. They looked young and innocent. He then touched his own face.
"I just turned 36 years old. If those two young men saw me on the street, would they consider me like an older brother? Or an uncle? Do I look already that old?"
Gun-Ho looked at himself in the mirror.
"I am indeed getting old. I came this far without a break and without realizing that I am aging. Mori Aikko is only 21 years old. Is she with me because she really likes me? Or because of my money?"
As Gun-Ho suddenly became self-conscious about his aged appearance, he decided to get a skin care, and he headed to downtown in Cheonan City.

This is the story of a poor young man whose poverty even shreds apart their family willing to climb his way through society and into the top. A very realistic novel that moves away from fantasy and sci-fi and focuses solely on the issues of society and life.

We arrived at the meeting hall were almost all ancestors of this and the nearby islands have arrived. After a quick introduction, the meeting began.
After everyone settled down, I begin the procedure, "Now, let's start with the book publishing business. I guess all of you have read all or some of the books. I will focus on the point that I wish to publish these books on a very large scale. After this deal is over, only then we will be moving on to Communication channel."

I did mention the communication matter to create pressure on having them compromise some of the book publication. Ancestor Navin opposed by saying, "Rohan Gupta, I think that these books are not to be sold outside Empire territories. Especially, Rare and above Grade books on Professions, it should not even be sold inside the Empire openly."

I was already prepared and begin explaining, "Ancestor Navin, I plan to earn a huge amount of money and also I plan to study and write books on higher grade professions, I already have some understanding and it won't be long before I start to write a book on them. My target is to sell Elementary and Unique grade books at cheap rates so that every professional can afford to buy it and thus can create hype when they realize that there is even higher grade book by the same person too."

"As for the matter about selling it inside the empire only, it is a pipe dream. If the spies were to learn of the books, they will surely pass on the books to other territories and maybe even dub-copy the book in their version of it. Tell me if it had not happened before. So we will not be losing only the books, but money also."

After a 5 second pause, I continued "Therefore, I plan to use the Empire's Trademark and routes for massive sell of the lower grade books in other empires and higher grade books will appear randomly in some auction with a sky-high price. How is my suggestion?"

Ancestor Navin "Alright, do as you like, but you are not allowed to sell any epic or higher grade books outside without permission, limit the number of the rare grade books, and use reputed auction house only."

Another Ancestor came forward and begin with saying "As for those epic and legendary grade books, we will provide you with corresponding Empire Credits(EC)." In fact, most of them begin evaluating and discussing their worth and credit. And my actual goal of selling them on large scale was just tossed aside and they didn't even bother about it after that. Ancestor Rajendra sure hinted me of their greediness. But I was not expecting it like this.

After 30 hours, they came to the conclusion that my Epic grade books worth only 15 EC and legendary grade books 20 EC. With a total of high-grade books I have, it became a total of 210 EC. (15*6+20*6 = 210)

I was starting to feel frustrated but I had more deals to make, so I will take my profit from those. Well, just for the information, the basic salary of the lowest soldier in the army is 3 EC a year. You might we wondering that what could be fetched in just 3 EC but then you are very wrong, 1 EC can give you food and clothes for a family of 10 people for a year, or 900 sq. ft. land or 1 unique grade weapon from Empire's Store House or things likewise. The scale of the amount is regulated by the emperor.

Moved here
https://assist-rxn036.blogspot.com/

[Ling Tian: System, start project to create cost effective Artifacts - one for Token, one for Office Desk and last one for Diary, following features are must --

Token should have written conversation features, location feature.

Desk should have pocket dimension for storage and should be able to sort itself. It should also be able to link up with tokens, dairies and other desks. Make every desk a database capable.

Dairy should be able to show categorized information with priorities and other tags. It should be able to show map like 2D-atlas with only concerned users, their distance and other details. It should be also capable of requesting queries from the desks.

Lastly after finally completing the project, start a separate project to modify the 3 projects with self-defense measures, alarm system and direct link with you to access. Also add three access levels to those 3 projects - Level 1, 2 and 3 access.]

[System, 3 projects initiated. 2 modification scheduled.]

***

After taking a long break of 10 hours, I opened the system's notifications. The projects where completed hours ago. Oh! By the way, system computational capabilities have improved since the spirit cultivation hit Nascent Soul Stage.

[System: 3 Projects with modification have been completed. Show Report ?]

[Ling Tian: Sure.]

[System: Report:

Token - Earth Low Grade - features - identification, storage, location, receive messages only, User's Living will.

Token - Earth Middle Grade - features - identification, storage, location sharing, receive messages only, User's Living will, health status.

Token - Earth High Grade - features - identification, storage, location, two-way communication, User's Living will, health status.

Desk - Earth High Grade - features - establishes network, storage(auto-sorting), Record files stored (auto-upload, auto-sorting). It has also -

User Access Level 1 - storage usage only.

User Access Level 2 - storage, queries and location(only level 1).

User Access Level 3 - storage, queries and location(all levels)

Diary - Earth Low Grade Artifact - User Access Level 1

1. Generate messages for Level 1.

2. Information and location queries (from only registered desk).

3. Two-way communication (with level 1 and level 2).

Diary - Earth Middle Grade Artifact -User Access Level 2

1. Two-way communication(with level 1 and level 2),

2. Information and location queries(from only self-registered desk)

Diary - Earth High Grade Artifact - User Access Level 3

1. Two-way communication(all levels).

2. Information and location queries(all levels).

3. Grant temporary access of selective features of above access levels to others. Need to grant again after fixed period of time.]

[Ling Tian: Alright, Its time to craft Sample Products.]

***

After 5 days I stopped crafting, during this period of time I have crafted

100 desk, 100 diary(earth low grade), 50 diary(earth middle grade), 20 diary(earth high grade).

100 of each earth grade tokens.

Now its time to look into book publication matter. For now, I'm going of publish books up-to Grade 3 of Artificer only. Then after some time, when the hype has slowed down, I will for plan other occupations.

[Ling Tian: System, add the new finding for artifact crafting and change the books into Grades of artificer with while maintaining Basic and Advance level.]

[System: Yes, host.]

Within five minutes, system notifications came.

[System: Books on Basic of Artifact Crafting and Advance Artifact Crafting is completed for Grade 1 to 4.]

I wrote first book of each book up-to Grade 3 only. And decide to rest for the day and the next day.

In the box were books—or rather, neatly stacked magazines.
On the cover of each of these magazines was a bright yellow border with a laurel leaf pattern. All were well-kept, and arranged in the order of their published date.
Without looking, Li Du already knew the title of the publication: "National Geographic," the most well-known and widely circulated magazine in the US and around the entire world.
The box that the little bug had flown into had magazines from 2000. There were titles like "Stunning Rare Footage Reveals Elusive Snow Leopards," and "Discover Europe's Far-Flung Island Paradise."
Beyond these magazines, there was also magazines from other years: 2001, 2002, 2003. A portion of them were from 2004.
Li Du's gaze lingered on these magazines. National Geographic was a series of quality magazines. It had rich content and impactful information. Li Du had been reading it lately as he had found that such magazines could broaden one's horizons.
The magazines that he had been reading were all from various years, as they had been retrieved from the storage units. They were worthless, and so he had kept them for his own reading.
These magazines were different from those that he had previously found; their value would be greater because they were arranged in order. There would be people who wanted to collect them.
Li Du retrieved the little bug; there was no sign of the young man who had stolen the basketball. He was going to have the little bug leave.
The little bug, however, hovered in the air. It then found many more cardboard boxes which had been wrapped up tightly.
Thinking of the magazines he had seen earlier, his heart fluttered. So he got the little bug to fly into the other boxes for a look.
They were still National Geographic magazines with covers depicting the same yellow border with the laurel leaf pattern and arranged in order of issue number. Those in the box were magazines from these five years: 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999.
Not one issue short!
The other boxes were also National Geographic—all the boxes were. Counting from the recent years, there were more than 20 boxes, covering more than a century's worth of history!
As the little bug flew in and out of these boxes, Li Du felt as though he were watching a documentary on history. He had found magazines from the last century: 1980s, 1960s, 1950s, 1940s, 1930s . . .
Lastly, he found a small booklet which had been wrapped with cling film. It was different from those magazines with yellow borders on their covers. This book had a pink cover with a number on its top right corner: 1888.10.
Li Du, who was familiar with National Geographic, was shocked to see this thin booklet. If he recalled correctly, this was the serial number of the first National Geographic publication!
The little bug flew inside the cover. There was faint traces of autographs signed by fountain pens. A row of names were on it: John Wesley Powell, Adolphus W. Greely . . .
Li Du was not familiar with these names—most people from modern times would not be familiar with these names. Only after searching for these names online with his phone did he realize how famous they had been during their time!
John Wesley Powell had taken the lead in the exploration of the Grand Canyon. He was, at that time, a famous explorer of wetlands and water sources. Adolphus W. Greely was the first person to perform polar exploration; he was also known as the "Ice and Snow Warrior."
These men had another identity: the founders of the National Geographic magazine and the earliest members of the Cosmos Club.
The first article in this pink booklet was titled "The Classification of Geographic Forms by Genesis" and was signed by W.J. McGee.
These magazines were much different; there was not a single photograph in them. They were filled mostly with words and figures, with the simple layout but serious analysis.
For more than a decade after it was first published, National Geographic did not have any pictures. Because of the academics within the articles, the inclusion of photographs was deemed as shallow.
This was up until 1905. Then, the publication's CEO Grosvenor had, at the risk of being fired from his job, inserted 11 photographs taken by a Russian explorer of Lhasa in Tibet.
In the same box as the inaugural issue, Li Du found this exact issue—the photograph of Lhasa in it was in black and white.
Scanning through these magazines, Li Du took in a deep breath.
He retrieved the little bug, and then as he stared at this storage unit, he felt exhilarated.
Honestly, he would like to have these magazines. They were simply too precious. That was, however, not why he wanted to have them. If he could get his hands on them, he wouldn't sell them away.
National Geographic might have been referred to as a magazine, but it could actually be thought of as an encyclopedia of sorts. The full set of the publication encompassed a whole century's worth of the best adventurers', scientists' and photographers' hearts, sweat and tears.
This set of magazines was more than just a showcase of sights and sounds. It also covered the ordinary folks, the planet's creatures from the depths of the sea to the tallest mountains, as well spoke about the vast universe. To people with a passion for nature and life, it was like the work of God!
This was especially true for the inaugural issue; only 200 copies had been printed in October 1888 and none had been put on sale. After all the key personnel had signed them, they were ceremoniously sent out to those who had supported them in their work.
More than 120 years later, this inaugural issue had become a rarity. When Li Du had searched about it on the Internet, only the Cosmos Club in Washington had retained its two copies.
One copy had once appeared on the Internet; it was put up for auction on eBay. It had sold for 400,000 US dollars.
Eventually, it was found to be a reproduction instead of an original.
Even so, it still sold for 50,000 dollars in the end. Reproductions of the inaugural issue were also rarely seen.
Li Du had no idea who these magazines belonged to but he could tell that the owner did not value them.
These boxes had been placed in the storage unit haphazardly. They were full of dust; some of the boxes had even been chewed on by vermins and bugs. Due to the humidity and weight impact, signs of damage had started to appear on some of the magazines.
He thought about it, and deduced that the owner probably did not know the value of the magazines. He could maybe find a way to buy them over. 
Seeing that he stood still, Hans asked, "What's wrong with you? Getting sick?"
He flashed his middle finger at him."F*ck you, you're the sick one. Come, let's continue searching for that *sshole. He must be in one of these houses."
Ah Ow walked along the path. When she passed a garden, she sniffed and then howled excitedly.
Li Du released the little bug to let it fly into the house attached to the garden. It was empty but when the little bug flew out, he saw someone hiding in the kennel of the garden…


They love gold, and they love silver. Even more so, they love gems that dazzle, like stars across the skies. 
Firearms, jewelleries, and precious metals; A collector’s world will not be complete without antiques.  
Storage auctions, old goods trade, re-estate sales and gold-digging. But the truth is, if one wants to make money, then the supreme way is through searching for the legendary treasures. 
Holding the fort, there’s an ocelot, a wolf, and an Andes condor. At the side, there’s a loyal hound, an irascible ape, and an African honey badger. Who said that you can only rely on humans when treasure hunting?! 

Books. And they also sometimes have hidden treasures. I'm not talking about primitive hiding places carved inside books. And about the books themselves. Their owners, knowing that they would come from the political police in the mid 10-20-30s of the 20th century, hid their securities, cards indicating where they hid their jewelry, last will, notes on what was happening in the books.

The nobles carefully cut off the first page of the "bookend" as well as the "backhand", they fasten the book block with the front and back sides of the binding cover. Then they removed the cardboard and put their documents, card, shares and securities there. And in the spine, on papyrus paper, left their thoughts or notes. They wrote with milk or lemon juice. The naive, aristocrats, although some of them, treated the paper with poisons ... One way or another, this did not help them, none of them came back. What about books? Part of them was taken, part was sold, and the parts were handed over to the public library.

In the period of decline, the collapse of the second empire, smart at hand, collectors simply stole a number of valuable books, as well as the workers of these institutions themselves. They stole valuable copies of books, sold them on the black market, and then changed their citizenship and left for other countries. But this is the dark side of gathering.

And bright, this is when the find happens by chance. Having bought a country book in a second-hand book dealer, individual bibliophiles want to restore a shabby book. They begin to disassemble it and randomly discover, instead of cardboard in the flyleaf and on the back, some papers or topographic maps with some strange marks.

The cards found there ... they are sometimes just with marked crosses or triangles and sometimes with encrypted conventional signs. To find their description, you need to find other books "keys." Which give a hint where to find the main book or geek, where decrypted conventional signs are hidden. In most cases, such a finding of one of the keys is already considered a rarity. And to find the whole chain of books, after 100 or 80 years, is almost impossible. Since both trees and stones, "marks", landmarks have long disappeared, like old houses, and even more so books in public libraries.

Since in view of the change in formats, ideology, social system, books from public libraries throughout Small-An were ripened in the 90-00s. These are tens of millions of publications. So apparently, those books in which the data was decrypted have long been lost.

But the search engine stupidly just goes to the places marked on the map and there, surprisingly, they find something, coins or buttons. Some people think that this is a cipher indicating the geographical coordinates, while others think that this is the direction in azimuth and the angle of the points. But both are mistaken. This is a fortune-telling on coffee grounds. Most likely, these nobles were just joking. And they hid the money, somewhere close by. To immediately quickly take the money and run away. But they were out of luck.

Sometimes the books themselves are a treasure. Gold coins or precious stones are hidden inside them, inside the binding ... and sometimes it's completely unbelievable, the books themselves, by their uniqueness of publication, circulation, publishing house, already cost $ 1,000-3,000.

In old books of the 1889-1940s, which still remained in public funds, you can sometimes see various entries on the pages of books. In French, Hebrew, German, Arabic. If you don't know these languages, then you won't be able to read anything, much less understand it. But some collectors say that sometimes there is some information about the treasures in these briefs. Well, as a historian, it's hard for me to believe it. Maybe this is another urban legend?

Like idle conjectures, old collectors that in the forged railing of old houses, some spans are made of gold or silver, and then simply thickly painted with black oil paint. Hard to believe ?!

But the story with postage stamps and stamps is not fiction, since foreigners gave the forester for these envelopes - a digital camera, laptop and iPhone. If it did not cost anything, they would not give such things in exchange.

- "Uh, dear, Historian, in Europe - electronics, cheap, the same laptop or camera, maybe they were old, already out of fashion and cost not the full price of a couple thousand dollars. But just a couple of hundred?" Skeptical, said Dara.

Well, brother, a couple of hundred dollars for a tattered mail envelope, that's very good, don't you? Said the historian.

- "Of course it's very Good!" Said Dara.

"In general, it seems to me that if everything is arranged like that, then you don't need to throw away old things, it all costs money" ?! Noticed, Dara.

But, not with us! Officially, you have not sold anything to anyone. For example, I had nickel silver cutlery, on the auction site in the Baltic, they cost $ 250-300. And here in Small-An, I was only offered $ 5! Whereas a set of steel, new only spoons already costs $ 25!

Yes, and for some reason we have many restrictions, toughening, you will not be able to conduct business based on prospecting, without obtaining all permissions, approvals, seals, writing reports, paying taxes every month and at the end of the year. This is so tiring. And you can't even send coins by mail to another country until you receive the assessment of the Small-An Cultural Heritage Center that this coin is not part of the country's cultural heritage. You can sell it to local collectors, but only for 30 percent of the price in the catalog ... and the prices there are 45 percent lower than the auction percentages ... in short, it's not so simple as, for example, in the same Baltic States or Europe ...

A lot of restrictions, until all permissions are received, it will take 5 years.

And of course, this is an exciting lesson to find what was lost, a long time ago.

But by the way, I didn't tell you how I found a couple of interesting gizmos in our many mountains - Pistachkov, Rybny, Sveta, and also the Habitats of the Robbers. What colorful names, toponyms!

And they all have their own meaning and are not just named!

COMPLETED

The Silk Road ... it is inevitable the emergence of wells, caravanserais, guard fortresses, postal stations, local bazaars, regional bazaars, the emergence of new jobs:
- robbers (there were whole settlements)
- caravan guards
- changed
- merchants

Just about them and will be discussed.


About their life, tricks.

Alas, English is still the same ... there are mistakes, I am sure of it.

I hope over time I will be able to fix them.

I just wanted to share information about such an interesting topic as the history of the development of the Silk Road.

----
And also a series of stories about treasures, treasure hunters.

--------------------------------
This is a work of art. Any resemblance to real people or real events is purely coincidental.

Hundreds of sets of experimental installations such as vials and glassware, large or small were orderly placed in a room of the palace tree which covered over 2,000 square meters. Some vials and glasswares contained various colorful liquids, which were still bubbling...
Complete organs of demon knights and specimens of demon fighters were immersed in some vials and glassware.
Some colorful weird ptomaine miasmas were floating in some sealed professional laboratory vessels and gradually corroding pieces of bloody flesh...
This room looked a bit grim and terrifying; however, a voodoo pharmacist or a researcher in microorganisms would definitely flicker their eyes and feel that they'd come to the paradise if they came here.
This was the microorganisms evolution lab of Castle of Black Iron. The equipment in this lab might be nothing different than similar labs in the outside world; however, due to the special abilities of Castle of Black Iron, this microorganisms evolution lab must be one of the greatest labs among humans.
After creating Heller, Zhang Tie had transferred the management of the evolution of various living beings and species in Castle of Black Iron to Heller. He only waited for the results instead of caring about the processes.
It was Zhang Tie's first time to come to this microorganisms evolution lab.
When Zhang Tie was cultivating in the private room of his airboat, he received Heller's information. Heller said that he wanted to show something important to Zhang Tie; therefore, Zhang Tie entered Castle of Black Iron.
Even when the full-moons demon miasma completed its mutation, Heller had not used the word "important".
Therefore, Zhang Tie wondered what made Heller meticulous.
"Heller, what do you want to show me?"
Standing in front of so many glasswares, Zhang Tie glanced over the dozens of triangular flasks on the lab table as he wondered what Heller was going to show him.
Being silent, Heller just took one of the triangular flasks and gave it to Zhang Tie, "Here's the latest variant of essential-energy aura yeast. It's very special; I think Castle Lord should take a look at it!"
"Over these years, haven't we got dozens of variants of essential-energy aura yeast? Is there anything special with it?"
Over so many years, the essential-energy aura yeast that helped Zhang Tie to establish his undertaking already had dozens of variants. However, all those variants had various shortcomings. Not all the variants were perfect or available; therefore, those variants were not that valuable practically.
"Castle Lord will understand once you take a look at it."
Zhang Tie took that flask which was filled with faint yellow liquid. Watching the beer-like liquid, he shook it and found that the liquid was very clear and didn't have any impurity.
"Is this thing fermented by the latest variant?"
"Yes!"
After hearing Heller's answer, Zhang Tie opened the glass cork of the triangular flask and moved its mouth close to his nose.
In a split second, an extremely strong smell of alcohol escaped out of the triangular flask.
Zhang Tie had smelt alcohol; however, the alcohol inside the flask smelt more spicy than common alcohol.
"Alcohol?"
"Almost like that!" Heller replied as he gave another triangular flask to Zhang Tie, "Here's the common alcohol, Castle Lord can make a comparison by yourself!"
'Almost like that?' Heller' words faintly startled Zhang Tie. He took another triangular flask and smelt the liquor inside it. Zhang Tie felt that the liquid in this flask smelt like normal alcohol, which was not spicy and looked transparent.
Zhang Tie tasted a bit of the faint yellow alcohol. Only after touching a bit of it, Zhang Tie had felt his tongue numb. That flask of special alcohol smelt too stimulative and was not drinkable at all.
"Given the taste, this flask of faint yellow alcohol was spicier than common alcohol. Is there anything else special?"
Watching Zhang Tie tasting it, Heller revealed a smile, "Castle Lord, have you forgotten about the fuel that you added to your Faerie-dragon T9?"
After being reminded by Heller, Zhang Tie's heart raced. He watched the two flasks of alcohol in his hands and directly poured some in two burning crucibles respectively. After that, he shot out a sparkle from his fingers which split into two sparkles in the air before falling into two burning crucibles respectively like two fireflies.
A cyan flame flared up as high as 16 cm in front of Zhang Tie at once from the burning crucible which held the faint yellow alcohol...
By contrast, the common alcohol was burning calmly and steadily in another crucible, the flame of which was only about 7 cm in height.
The flame of the faint yellow alcohol was much fiercer, hotter and higher than that of the common alcohol.
From the effect, the flame of the faint yellow alcohol didn't remind people of alcohol.
Standing in front of the two burning crucibles, Zhang Tie's face looked cyan and kept flickering.
After quite a while, the flames in the two crucibles almost died out at the same time. Zhang Tie stretched out his fingers and touched the bottoms of the crucibles. He found the bottoms of the crucibles were still very clean, leaving no dust or remnants as if nothing had been burned inside yet.
Besides water and carbon dioxide, burning alcohol would leave nothing at all.
After swallowing his saliva, Zhang Tie asked Heller, "What's the fuel value of this new alcohol?"
"The fuel value of this new alcohol could reach 11,000-12,000 kilocalories per kg!" Heller replied, "Our latest variant of essential-energy aura yeast is featured by very single and powerful fermentation properties. Products being fermented by this variant would almost not contain any aura, namely, being inedible. However, this variant could extract the maximal energy and fuel value of the substance being fermented. When we ferment something with this variant, we would gain such a new alcohol which has an extremely high fuel value!"
After hearing Heller's words, Zhang Tie rushed out of the microorganisms evolution lab and came to the library of the palace tree almost at the fastest speed.
Watching Zhang Tie's back, Heller revealed a faint smile as if he had understood Zhang Tie's intention...
Zhang Tie had collected over 1 million books from Waii Subcontinent in the library of the palace tree. These books were inclusive and covered all aspects. Many of them were publications from before the Catastrophe.
Zhang Tie remembered that he had read something useful from a delicate publication before the Catastrophe.
After darting into the library as fast as a lightning bolt, Zhang Tie circled around the bookshelves which were higher than 10 m in the library for a short while before he found his target. He sprung up and rapidly took a book from the last layer of the bookshelf.
This book was a publication in Hebrew before the Catastrophe. Although it had been over 800 years old, it was still well preserved.
The book had a delicate hardcover, on which there were a propeller-driven airplane, a bus and some engine models before the Catastrophe. Beside these patterns were a lot of dense sugarcane field. It was a professional magazine targeted at engineers and professional readers. Its name was "New Energy".
In the middle of this magazine, Zhang Tie saw the topic of this magazine "Bacelia the big country in planting sugarcane starts the alcohol energy plan after the petroleum crisis"
There were two subtitles below the topic "Bacelia's first ethanol-fueled airplane made a maiden flight successfully on October 5th after ethanol service station and bushes were spread across the country".
Under this subtitle, there was another line of eye-catching scarlet letters "Three petroleum groups strictly condemn that Bacelia government for destroying local energy supply structure and quota plan"
Zhang Tie rapidly turned to the page about the introduction of an alcohol-driven airplane——
"The first alcohol-driven airplane successfully accomplished its maiden show in Salaburg City, Bacelia Country on October 5. Before this, this airplane called "Hope" had completed 300 hours' trial flight being driven by alcohol. The pilots claimed that the "Hope" was in very good condition..."
Zhang Tie skimmed over this passage so as to gain the key information that he wanted.
"[Hope] is jointly developed by Bacelia Airplane Manufacturing Company and Bacelia University. Being renovated from a mustang propeller airplane which was fueled by petroleum, this plane adopts a Lycoming 320 horsepower 6-cylinder engine. It could hold 2 people..."
"Engineers declared that ethanol-driven airplane is more durable than petroleum-driven airplanes; additionally, its driving efficiency was 7% higher than that of petroleum-driven airplanes..."
"It was Bacelia government's another major measure after modifying 1/3 of the buses across the country into dual-purpose buses..."
"On the very day the "Hope" accomplished its trial flight successfully, Bacelia Airplane Manufacturing Company had received the orders of 150 ethanol-driven airplanes from the farmers and sugarcane producers in this country. Farmers and sugarcane producers in Bacelia Country had not imagined that what they planted could be used to produce alcohol and could help airplanes fly in the sky. Therefore, farmers and sugarcane producers were very spirited. What counted most, the cost of this sort of airplane was only 1/3 of that of traditional petroleum airplane. Additionally, this new-energy airplane would not cause any pollution in flight. By contrast, petroleum-driven airplanes would produce a lot of harmful gases and pollute the air..."
"Coolio, a sugarcane producer said that he would save a lot of money by using this new sort of airplane to spray pesticide. Additionally, it was more convenient for him to do short-distance travel..."
"An official of Bacelia Airplane Manufacturing Company expressed that alcohol-driven mini aircraft were in research and development..."
"If the alcohol energy plan could be implemented smoothly, Bacelia, as the biggest alcohol producer in this region would become an energy output country..."
After skimming over the content, Zhang Tie flew off once again and took out another magazine called "New Energy" from the bookshelf. Compared to the earlier one, this magazine's cover was black which felt especially depressive. Given the date of publication, Zhang Tie knew that it was published half a year later after the earlier one.
There were two titles under the cover.
"A coup broke out in Bacelia Country, the ex-president of Bacelia was killed by guns in the coup"
"The new Bacelia Parliament has passed the energy use act and will forbid the production and sales of all the alcohol-driven airplanes; additionally, the alcohol fuel of buses will be strictly mixed with petroleum according to certain proportion"
"The three top petroleum groups provided a loan of 120 billion gold coins for Bacelia government so as to recover the domestic orders"
...
After putting back the two publications before the Catastrophe, Zhang Tie was in deep meditation. According to the introduction of one of the magazines, in the age of humans before the Catastrophe when the petroleum would dry up, as a major energy in that age, the fuel value of gasoline was 10,450-11,250 kilocalories per kg; however, the fuel value of alcohol before the Catastrophe varied from 6,000-7,000 kilocalories per kg. In that age, humans had already developed a complete set of means to replace gasoline with alcohol. All the internal combustion engines being driven by gasoline could be driven by alcohol only after minor modifications.
Before the Catastrophe, alcohol didn't become a popular fuel because of political reason instead of technical reason. It was the profits of petroleum groups that killed the possibilities.
In the Black Iron Age, the reason that alcohol was not a popular energy source lay in the marvelous changes that happened after the Catastrophe, causing the fuel value of alcohol to decrease a lot. As a result, alcohol couldn't meet the demand for internal combustion engines anymore. Sports cars like Faerie-dragon T9 had to use external combustion engines instead of internal combustion engines.
'The latest mutated essential-energy aura yeast could produce an alcohol whose fuel value varies from 11,000 to 12,000 kilocalories per kg through fermentation. This figure is much greater than that of alcohol before the Catastrophe; it even surpasses that of gasoline. Doesn't it mean that I could produce many machines and equipment which were driven by gasoline before the Catastrophe and run them, such as propeller airplanes which moved faster than airships, high-performance buses and armored vehicles which had greater assaulting capability on the battlefield?'
Zhang Tie was startled by the wholly new possibilities and prospects brought by the mutated essential-energy aura yeast.
'This alcohol might bring an energy and industrial revolution in the Black Iron Age.'
...
Two days later, when Zhang Tie had recovered his composure and was cultivating with crossed legs in the cultivation room of the airboat, the doorbell rang. Zhang Tie then opened his eyes.
Liu Xing's voice drifted from outside, "Hermit, we've arrived at Fire Dragon Bounty Territory!"


After the Catastrophe, every rule in the world was rewritten.
In the Age of Black Iron, steel, iron, steam engines and fighting force became the crux in which human beings depended on to survive.
A commoner boy by the name Zhang Tie was selected by the gods of fortune and was gifted a small tree which could constantly produce various marvelous fruits. At the same time, Zhang Tie was thrown into the flames of war, a three-hundred-year war between humans and demons on the vacant continent. Using crystals to tap into the potentials of the human body, one must cultivate to become stronger.
The thrilling legends of mysterious clans, secrets of Oriental fantasies, numerous treasures and legacies in the underground world — All in the Castle of Black Iron!
Written by Drunk Tiger, this novel is a prime example of fantasy steampunk. Let us journey through the world of limitless possibilities and inventions together!
------
**Warning: This novel contains mature content**


publication of books

book of books

Removed - Mark of London

Deleted book

Pet King

Story of a Big Player from Gangnam

A.S.S.I.S.T.

Deleted Novel DN001

Treasure Hunt Tycoon

Stories about merchants or cunning merchant

Castle of Black Iron

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