Feeling bored after finishing "A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality," the aftereffects are too strong! You and I are both Han Li, mere mortals, relying on picking up leaks, popping pills, and barely developing, step by step hardening our way to the Great Ascension stage, doesn't this resemble the survival record in the crypto world? Aren't we all starting as mere mortals? Without mining machines or insider information, the little capital in our pockets isn't even enough to cover the transaction fees of the big players. But we still believe in the saying that my fate is determined by me, not by heaven, and dive headfirst into this flesh-eating, bone-spitting battlefield.
The initial capital is all scraped together; Han Li back then would fight for just a few low-grade spirit stones, and we, to accumulate our initial positions, aren't we also living frugally? When exchanging wages for USDT, our hands tremble like it's our first time flying with a sword, and we have to calculate whether we have enough to replenish our positions even for a cup of instant noodles. Every penny is a future elixir for crossing tribulations; who dares to spend it recklessly?
Remember when Dogecoin surged unexpectedly? Remember when an NFT avatar was suddenly retweeted by a blue-check big shot? Remember when someone in a certain community tossed out a white paper link out of the blue? Those sleepless nights scrolling through Twitter, those actions you thought were just a casual try, later you realized, that was the only glimpse of the void gate on your path of cultivation. Some caught it, some were slow, the way of heaven waits for no one.
The hardest part has never been the explosive rise; it's dodging inner demons. How many brothers have gone mad halfway through their cultivation? At the peak of the bull market, thinking of themselves as Yuan Ying ancestors, fully leveraging and borrowing to invest in low-tier coins, only to be struck down by a bolt of lightning (regulatory black swan), resulting in all their cultivation wasted. Or being deceived by a big shot from the secret realm (a mentor) into taking over a position, their physical bodies bearing the brunt. The inner demons of the crypto world are three: FOMO, greed, and unwillingness. Han Li slowly matures spirit herbs with his little green bottle; the only thing we can trust is our own accumulated knowledge.
What hurts the most? It's that after finally advancing from Foundation Establishment to Golden Core (account multiplying dozens of times), due to an impulsive action, being sent back to Qi Refinement overnight. There’s no stable ascension in the crypto world; a small mistake can lead to irretrievable ruin. Those moments of slapping their thighs saying, if only I hadn't sold back then / if only I had run away back then. All cracks in the Dao heart.
But speaking of which, precisely because this is the battlefield of mere mortals, there are always miracles. I've never seen a protagonist in a cultivation novel become immortal while lying down; the crypto world is the same.
Perhaps we will never reach the realm of the big whales, but at least we can cultivate a skill to survive in this brutal market.