Divine Convenience Store

Chapter 667 - 667: Divine Guidance Booth

"To think that even Goddess Xingxing and Sage Danzhu have set their prices…" Wu Meiyu murmured, peering over Xiaoyu's shoulder. "15,000 Dimension Essence a minute. I'm afraid even my father won't be able to afford it. A king's ransom for a mere sixty seconds of conversation.""It is a bargain, and you know it, Meiyu," Yu Qingyan stated, her voice carrying the certainty of someone who had already dabbled with similar deals as an Emissary of the Verdant Sky Pavilion.

She stepped into the booth, her dark eyes reflecting the soft glow of the jade console. "These are divine beings and immortals. A sect patriarch will gladly bankrupt his treasury for a five-minute consultation with Zhenren Chuang to fix a flaw in their sect-protecting array. An alchemist stuck at a bottleneck for three centuries will sell his soul for one minute of Sage Danzhu's time to correct a pill formula. Calling this service a Hall of Enlightenment is well-deserved."

Pan Ruo stood at the doorway of the booth, her head tilted slightly as if listening to a frequency no one else could hear. Her fingers twitched as she started calculating.

"Assuming a conservative twenty percent occupancy rate across fifty booths, operating sixteen hours a day, with an average consultation rate of 8,000 Dimension Essence per minute…" Pan Ruo's eyes widened, a flicker of pure mercantile awe crossing her serene features. "The daily revenue generated by this single facility will eclipse the entire ground floor's gross income by a factor of twelve…"

"Hah! Boss will be surprised again!" Liu Xiaoyu cheered, puffing out her chest as if she had come up with the idea herself. She immediately jabbed her finger at the screen, aiming for Goddess Xingxing's name. "Let's test it! I want to ask her if she has any new shades of lip tint coming out!"

[Error: Employee Accounts cannot initiate consultations during closed hours. Please utilize standard communication channels or await official store opening.]

"Tsk. Stingy system," Xiaoyu grumbled, pulling her hand back.

"Sister Xiaoyu, why will you use that for a simple question?" Xiao Ya tilted her head.

"Heh. Of course, because we won't be charged as employees of the store. Maybe I can chat with Sister Yangyang through here as well. It's been a while since she returned to the Third Heaven." Liu Xiaoyu's eyes sparkled at the thought.

Meanwhile, Wu Meiyu and Yu Qingyan could only shake their heads at the young woman's absurdity.

After thoroughly inspecting the entire hall and understanding its purpose, they returned to the front desk.

Once again, Liu Xiaoyu marched out to the other side and grabbed the handle of the door to the [Hall of Tribulation].

"Now let's see what's in here!" She exclaimed.

With a hefty pull, the door slid open. The atmosphere here was entirely different. There were no soft lights or plush cushions. The corridor was lined with heavy, lead-lined doors that looked like bank vaults.

Xiaoyu pushed open the first vault door. Inside was a stark, circular room composed of dark, highly conductive spirit-metal. In the center sat a single meditation mat, surrounded by twelve thick, metallic pillars extending from the floor to the ceiling.

A glowing interface hovered above the mat.

[Welcome to the Hall of Tribulation: Managed Risk Assessment Facility.]

[Current Services Available:]

[Lightning Dispersion Grid Activation: 50,000 DE (Reduces Tribulation Lightning intensity)]

[Heart-Demon Suppression Incense (Automated Venting): 25,000 DE]

[Karmic Severing Shielding: 100,000 DE (Provides a 5-second absolute barrier against karmic backlash during Spirit Severing)]

[Emergency Medical Evacuation Protocol: 5,000 DE or more (Automatically teleports user to the Celestial Hot Spring upon detection of lethal organ failure during a breakthrough tribulation)]

The four women stared at the glowing blue text in absolute, stunned silence.

"This… What kind of services are these? Is this even allowed?" Wu Meiyu finally whispered, her voice trembling with a mixture of horror and profound admiration. "Is this what he calls 'insurance policy'? Helping cultivators in their tribulations."

"Indeed. This breaks every known law of cultivation," Yu Qingyan gasped, stepping back as if the room itself might bite her. "Tribulations are meant to be tests of worthiness. To temper the soul and body. To buy your way out of the danger… will Heaven's Will not seek to destroy this place?"

"Heaven's Will tried to destroy Boss. But I don't think he's the one who suggested this… This must be from the divine beings!" Liu Xiaoyu pointed out pragmatically, though even she looked a little unnerved by the audacity of the facility. "If people can pay to not die during a breakthrough, the waiting list for this room is going to stretch all the way to the Western Sacred Lands. Old monsters who have been hiding in caves for centuries because they are too terrified to face their tribulation will empty their vaults to use this."

"Risk mitigation," Pan Ruo muttered, her eyes glowing. "By offering a safety net, we encourage high-level patrons to attempt breakthroughs on our premises. If they succeed, they become stronger, requiring higher-tier goods from our store. If they fail but survive the evacuation protocol, they will require a massive amount of healing supplies from our pharmacy. It is a win-win scenario for the establishment."

"Sister Meiyu, Sister Xiaoyu, there's also something here." Xiao Ya, along with Liu Xiaoping, called out at the end of the hall where what appeared to be a request board stood.

The four women walked towards them to check it out, reading the sign above.

[Tribulation Mercenary Ledger]

The holographic board flickered as the group approached, displaying a streamlined interface with two primary tabs: Post a Bounty and Accept a Contract.

Wu Meiyu leaned closer, reading the fine print scrolling at the bottom of the screen. "It says here… patrons undergoing a tribulation within the [Hall of Tribulation] can post commissions for external assistance."

"External assistance? This [Hall of Tribulation] is truly defying Heaven's Will! Besides… how does that work? Each tribulation is different… Except for the Immortal Ascension, only Foundation Establishment Stage, Soul Severing Stage and Tribulation Transcendence Stage would call upon tribulation lightning." Yu Qingyan said, also puzzled at how this 'tribulation mercenary' is going to work.

"Oh. It's simple! Let's wait for Boss! He'd certainly be able to understand this new Divine Guidance Booth better than us. Hehe." Liu Xiaoyu suggested.

Upon hearing that, Yu Qingyan's gaze drifted away from the terminal while her hand instinctively flew to her chest.

A sharp, searing spike of heat flared from the [Twin-Frost Resonance Ring] on her finger. It wasn't the warm, comforting hum she had felt earlier but a clear violent pulse of boiling heat.

"Qingyan? What is it?" Wu Meiyu noticed her sudden pallor, instantly stepping to her side.

"It's Lin Mo," Yu Qingyan gasped, her knees buckling slightly. She gripped the ring, trying to send a wave of cooling, soothing intent through the connection, but it was like pouring a cup of water into an erupting volcano. "He is… Something must be happening to him. I thought he lost consciousness earlier but he must've woken up by now… And his body tempering is at a critical juncture. It feels like his very essence is burning away."

Xiaoyu's playful demeanor vanished instantly. Her golden eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. "I see. He's at the last step already."

—

Inside the Premium Cultivation Room, Lin Mo opened his eyes.

He was aware that he had lost consciousness, allowing the liquid essence and the Viscera Cleansing to happen automatically.

At the moment, now that his fractured consciousness that had splintered into a thousand shards returned to its normal state, he began sensing his current state.

The [Liquid Star-Forged Essence] he had swallowed had not merely coated his internal organs; it had aggressively invaded them at a cellular level.

The heat was absolute. His stomach, his lungs, his heart had all melted down into a primordial soup of biological matter and celestial metal.

Normally, that would spell his death but it was clearly part of the tempering.

The [Abyssal Ice Electrolyte Brew] acted as a freezing containment field, fighting a desperate, second-by-second war against the molten Star Forged Iron, preventing it from completely vaporizing his life force.

Meanwhile, the [Hyper-Regen Sour Gummies] were working in overdrive. As fast as the liquid essence destroyed a cell, the regenerative properties of the gummy forced a new one to grow in its place. Only this time, the new cell was fused with the metallic, starlight essence. The [Frosty Mint Numbing Patches] continued infusing the cold essence into his body, preventing his newly tempered skin, flesh and bones from being affected.

It was a cycle of endless death and rebirth happening millions of times a minute.

"Compress... Align... Stabilize..." Lin Mo breathlessly muttered.

The mantra of the [Everflowing Serenity Sutra] was a faint, distant whisper in his mind, the only tether keeping his ego from dissolving completely. He focused on that whisper. He dragged his fractured consciousness back together, visualizing the six constellations in his dantian.

Then, he used his [Stellar Domain] and the [Silent Sea Domain], turning it entirely inward. He crushed the expanding, explosive pressure of the molten iron down, forcing it to adhere to the blueprint of the [Stellar Iron Forging Physique] manual, allowing it to finally reform his melted organs.

He stopped fighting the pain. He accepted it as a necessary transaction cost. He directed the flow of the molten metal, guiding it along the pathways of his [Vein of the Silent Stream].