General Store: We Take Any Job, as Long as the Spirit Stones Are Good

Shen Xian transmigrates to a world of cultivation, with no interest in competing for the Great Dao.

At the border between a mortal town and a cultivator's marketplace, he rents a shop with a crooked sign bearing seven words: "Anything goes, as long as you pay in spirit stones."

Finding a treasure-hunting mouse: three spirit stones. Identifying counterfeit pills: five. Settling noise disputes between spirit beasts: ten. Every so often, he helps rogue cultivators investigate a set of muddled accounts, charging whatever he feels like.

Business is steady but unremarkable, until a Golden Core rogue cultivator walks in. "I have an account spanning three hundred years that I can't balance."

Shen Xian takes one look and gets a headache that lasts three days.

The cut ends of the threads are clean. Someone is severing karma.

"Who did it?"

"They wore the same clothes and spoke very politely. Whatever you asked, they said they didn't know."

Shen Xian closes his abacus. "I'll take the job. But I can't beat a Golden Core cultivator. I only handle the accounting."

The Golden Core cultivator replies, "You handle the accounts. I'll handle the fighting."

The cultivation world's first investigator of accounts has opened for business.