After transmigrating to a parallel city, Xiao Se clutches an old pocket watch and becomes the most insignificant ant around.
That is, until the blood from his fingertip stains the watch face and his sea of consciousness erupts with billions of points of light: coordinates to countless alternate dimensions.
He trades a physics textbook for alien energy technology, a folding saw for thousand-year-old rice seeds from the cultivation world, and a few predictions about the future to sway the power struggles at court.
Every trade is fair, with no cheating. Under the rules' shackles, which bring searing pain to his mind, he quietly weaves a vast web spanning dimensions.
The council is rife with factional strife, the royal family's power struggle grows ever more perilous, ancient martial sects and supernatural organizations covet the pocket watch's secrets, and foreign powers watch hungrily from the sidelines.
Xiao Se lies low behind the scenes, using Yuanqi Investments as his shield and the Dark Pavilion's forces as his spear. With one hand, he controls the lifeblood of the economy; with the other, he commands superhuman martial power.
When council bills are amended to suit his wishes, the new emperor bows and scrambles to please him, and the Xuanmen Alliance hails him as its supreme leader...
No one knows that this ordinary young man who once drifted through the streets has already donned the crown of a throne belonging only to the shadows.
"Rules? Order? They're nothing but bargaining chips on my trading table."
