Also known as “Me, a Sword Cultivator: Pay Up!” and “The Years a Broke Sword Cultivator Made Trouble in the Stars”
[Blurb One]
As a sword-cultivation prodigy seen only once in a thousand years in the cultivation world, Wen Yang was laughing at the heavens one moment, shouting, “My fate is mine to command, not Heaven's!” as she braced herself against the lightning tribulation of ascension. The next moment, she had been blasted across dimensions, covered in soot.
The good news: She had successfully ascended.
The bad news: She'd been a little too successful. She had ascended straight into the interstellar age!
Watching interstellar mercenaries blast away at each other with laser electromagnetic cannons at the slightest provocation, and giant mechs casually tear apart Class Six aberrant beasts with their bare hands, Wen Yang felt her worldview take a violent hit.
Did everyone go this hard these days?
This was freaking... thrilling!
But before she could go looking for trouble, she had to deal with something more pressing... She was completely broke, with pockets even emptier than her face. How was she supposed to survive in an interstellar age of rampant inflation, soaring prices, and absurdly high costs of living?
[Blurb Two]
Wen Yang felt like luck had abandoned her. After finally cultivating her way to the ascension stage, a bolt of heavenly lightning had reduced everything to zero. Not only had she transmigrated to the stars, she had landed in a notorious lawless zone and become a refugee on a wasteland planet.
Looking at the drafty shack and the negative balance in her account, Wen Yang clenched her fist around her beloved sword, now blasted into scrap metal. We sword cultivators face hardship head-on. It's just making money, right? I can do this!
Upholding the fine sword-cultivator tradition of working hard and doing anything for money, Wen Yang promptly joined the Mercenary Association and began her daily routine of three jobs a day, seven days a week, doing backbreaking labor.
What?
The black market was paying top dollar for Devil Vines, offering two hundred starcoins per kilogram?
Wen Yang was eager to get started. “I'll dig them up!”
A wave of aberrant beasts was coming, and one Class Three aberrant beast core could be exchanged for five hundred starcoins?
Wen Yang's eyes lit up. “I'll fight them!”
And so, as she took on every job indiscriminately in her relentless money-making campaign, people were stunned to discover that someone named Wen Yang had appeared out of nowhere on the interstellar mercenary rankings. Her completed-job count soared at an astonishing pace, and she quickly became the year's top mercenary.
Wanting to see what this daredevil who only took high-risk, high-reward jobs, had practically monopolized every S-rank mission, and valued money over her life actually looked like, a crowd gathered to watch. Then they saw a young woman stroll out of the Mercenary Association with a huge black sword strapped to her back.
Then, as everyone stared in disbelief, they heard a whoosh.
The young woman flew away on her sword...
Everyone: ?
Everyone: !
Theme: Be strong and keep striving, even in adversity.
