Chapter 53: The Hidden Vault
The transition from the sterile, hushed corridors of the hospital to the concrete realities of Shu City was seamless for Ethan McCain. Leaving his father and sister to watch over his sleeping mother, he walked out of the VIP wing with a steady, quiet stride. The hospital staff, from the senior specialists to the floor nurses, offered deep, respectful bows as he passed. To them, he was the enigmatic billionaire benefactor backing Black Global Holdings; to his family, he was an extraordinarily lucky young man who had successfully managed a lottery win. Ethan preferred the gap between those two perceptions. It allowed him a layer of absolute privacy while he laid the tracks for a total corporate takeover.
He stepped out of the hospital's private rear exit into the cool afternoon air. Waiting for him in the VIP parking bay bay was a brand-new, obsidian-black Mercedes-AMG G63, its twin-turbo engine idling with a low, menacing rumble. The keys had been delivered directly to the hospital concierge earlier that morning. Ethan slipped into the immaculate leather interior, the rich scent of premium upholstery filling his senses. He didn't need a driver, and he certainly didn't need a secretary tracking his movements. Far away in the provincial capital, Black Global Holdings was operating under his strict, automated directives. He had intentionally structured the corporation as a remote behemoth to keep his personal life completely detached from the public eye.
Resting his hands on the steering wheel, he engaged the drive gear and accelerated out into the city traffic. His immediate destination wasn't the Golden Dragon Hotel, nor was it the university campus. Before he took his place at the apex of Shu City's high society, he needed to review his truest, most absolute foundation.
With a brief thought, Ethan called up the transparent blue interface of the Zillion System.
[ZILLION SYSTEM: STATUS UPDATE LOADING...]
Host: Ethan McCain
Wealth: $9,819,921,780,000,000.00
LEVEL 1 Sub-Stage: Body Refining (Pseudo)
Body: 100
Mind: 100
System Points (SP): 1,985
Skills: None
Ethan's eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at the flashing System Points. 1,985 SP. Almost at the two thousand threshold.
The mechanics of the Zillion System were absolute and uncompromising. It didn't provide him with magical items, quest rewards, or hidden inheritances. Its sole, definitive function was to monitor his wealth, process his expenditures, and convert that financial output into System Points. Those points were the only currency that mattered, used exclusively to upgrade his physical body, enhance his mental capacity, or purchase raw, reality-bending skills from the unlocked database.
The rule of conversion was brutal: One hundred million dollars spent equaled exactly one System Point.
To accumulate nearly two thousand points, Ethan had been forced to inject an astronomical amount of liquidity into the markets over the past several weeks. He had quietly instructed Black Global Holdings to execute massive, sweeping acquisitions across the province. They had bought out failing manufacturing plants, absorbed local tech startups, and taken over commercial real estate blocks—including the complete, outright purchase of the Golden Dragon Hotel.
Every single transaction had been perfectly insulated through tier-one legal channels. Ethan possessed an absolute rule: everything had to be clean. He structured the buys through legitimate venture capital frameworks, corporate restructring clauses, and unconditional debt liquidations. There were no loopholes, no tax evasions, and no illegal market manipulations. Everything was done in a way that wouldn't contradict a single municipal or federal law.
Yet, the sheer velocity of the capital injection had been terrifying. In the provincial capital, the executive managers handling the paperwork had been scared to death by the sheer volume of cash moving through their clearing houses. They had never seen an entity move hundreds of billions of dollars with such reckless, effortless freedom, completely altering the financial landscape of the province in a matter of days.
But as Ethan closed the system interface, a cold grin formed on his face. He knew he was rich—richer than any dynasty in human history—but he also knew he was still fundamentally weak.
His Body and Mind were capped at 100 for the current sub-stage. While he was physically stronger and mentally sharper than any ordinary human, he was still flesh and blood. A high-caliber sniper round or a coordinated tactical strike could still end his life. He didn't have defensive skills yet, and his family was compltely exposed to the hidden dangers of the world.
Worse still, the silence from the NSB (National Security Bureau) was deafening.
Ethan had been tracking their encrypted frequencies through his system-enhanced network queries. The NSB was the invisible hand that monitored anomalous financial movements within the country. Moving hundreds of billions legally didn't stop them from noticing; it just stopped them from acting immediately. The fact that they hadn't knocked on his door or frozen his personal accounts meant they were observing him, calculating his threat level from the dark.
"I need more points," Ethan muttered to himself, his fingers tightening on the leather steering wheel. "I need to break through this pseudo-stage and unlock the skill tree. Millions of dollars mean nothing if a single bullet can take it away."
He accelerated the G-Wagon, the powerful vehicle cutting through the afternoon traffic toward a high-end residential complex near the city center. The storm was gathering, its center swirling directly around the upcoming charity gala at the Golden Dragon Hotel. For the next twenty-four hours, Ethan would remain in the shadows, letting the tension in the city build to an absolute fever pitch while he prepared to force the next massive system evolution.